This MEMOIR is dedicated to my late adoptive mother Mrs. Lew Foong Gin who cared and loved me deeply.

My name is Edward Peter Gin. I was born on the 29th January 1941 in Melbourne. My adoptive father was an Australian born Chinese who married my mother Lew Foong Gin who was born in China. Growing up in Australia during World War 2 was very difficult for me as my facial appearance was that of an Eurasian. I was generally not accepted by both the Australians and Chinese as I was considered a half-caste. I asked my parents at an early age the question why I wasn't like them in appearance. I was told that I was a throwback. Having the belief what my parents told me was the truth I accepted what they said was correct even though it didn't make sense to me.

The Chinese family that I grew up in was a dysfunctional family. There were continual problems with my father Albert Gin. Even though he was from a very well to do Chinese family, he still nevertheless gave the Chinese a bad name. Most of the Chinese in Melbourne were good honest hard working people.

In 1987 to my surprise a friend of mine told me that I had been adopted. I was stunned on what I had heard. Subsequent enquiries with Chinese family members verified that I had been adopted. I asked my family the names of my biological parents, they all replied we don't know. In fact it was probably the case that most of the early Chinese in Melbourne knew about my adoption except me. On hearing the news, it affected me greatly. It resulted in me being stressed, breaking out into severe case of depression, psoriasis and losing my hair. I was on sick leave from work for a month.

In 2008, my half-sister Alena Lee contacted me. Alena was told by one of her aunts that her mother had a baby boy before she got married in 1945. From Alena I found out the identity of my biological mother, who was Vena Grace Wong Yen.

To this day after a number of years of searching for my parental roots, I am still unable to find out the name of my biological father.

E.P.Gin

15th. Sep. 2018

My story starts when I was born on the 29thJanuary 1941 at the Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne during the Second World War. On my Birth Certificate I was named Edward Peter Gin. I was the son of Albert Gin and Lew Foong Gin. I had a sister Nancy Gin.

My mother Lew Foong Gin was born in China in 1911. When she died she had been in Australia for 55 years. Her English wasn’t that good. My father Albert Gin was born in Melbourne in 1906 and died in 1960. Mum managed the Far East Cafe, 328 Bridge Road, Richmond, Victoria. The living conditions at the Restaurant were appalling and far from ideal. The building had two storeys. Downstairs of the Far East Restaurant, was the dining room for the customers, another separate room for the family and staff to dine and the kitchen. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. The building had an occasional problem with mice and cockroaches. The whole building throughout needed a good coat of paint and extensive repairs to the plumbing and the electrical wiring. Electrical fuses were often being blown out often through faulty wiring.

There would be at times rain water leaking through the roofs. Often there were buckets used to collect the rain water. There was no hot running water upstairs. When we wanted a bath, we had to take up several tubs of hot water from the wood heated copper tub down below in the laundry to take upstairs to wash ourselves. Most of the baths we had were generally lukewarm. At times going up the stairs we occasionally spilt hot water on the stairs. Often we would all bathe in the same bath water. The landlord was reluctant to carry out any immediate repairs.

We all lived upstairs in very meagre conditions. On hot days, most of us washed ourselves downstairs in the backyard by the use of a shower. There was no heating in the building, during winter it was very cold in the building. We wore heavy clothing to keep ourselves warm. There was no toilet upstairs. The only toilet was outside the building. Quite often throughout the night you would hear people walking up and down the stairs going to and from the toilets.

I had to share a bedroom with my sister. Both Nancy and I got on very well together. She was a loving sister to me. By the time she went to our bedroom to sleep, I was normally fast asleep. I always be waiting for Nancy to come home from school. When she got home she told me what she did at school that day, when she had the time she would read books to me, and then after a while she went on downstairs to help her mother in the kitchen.

The Chinese Cooks Lew and Fong we employed shared one bedroom. They generally wrote letters and sent postal cards back to their loved ones in China played cards, read books and played music together on their recorders after they had finished work. There was never much noise coming from their room. They put up with the meagre conditions where they lived with no complaints as they considered life in Australia was better than that back home in China

The other bedroom was shared by my father and mother. Eventually my mother moved in to sleep with Nancy and I, as she wasn’t getting much sleep being with Dad. The reason being was that my father Albert Gin was sick through the advanced stages of tuberculosis, smoking opium and cigarettes in bed, ranting and raving through his drunken rages and making loud coughing noises at night. The cause of his sickness was attributed to his own self abuse through over indulgence in drugs and alcohol. On one occasion he burnt the blankets and the mattress when he fell asleep smoking in his bed. When my mother heard about it she was hysterical. Luckily mother was wasn’t in the bed with him at that time. He seldom helped Mum. What money we had Dad, lost in gambling on horses and other Chinese forms of gambling. We were poor just battling along for mere existence.

Unbeknown to me in my early childhood I was adopted at the age of 4 months From an adoption point of view my biological mother probably under the advice of her mother put me up for adoption as quick as possible. Probably it wasn't all that easy to find a family to adopt me as I was labelled as a half-caste. It seemed that the Albert and Lew Foong Gin household would be ideal place for me to go to. I am sure that money changed hands for the Gin's to adopt me. During World War 2, it would have been difficult for someone to adopt me as I was an Eurasian,

During my early years I was told by my sister Nancy as a baby I was fed from a tomato sauce bottle and a teat. Apparently traditional baby milk bottles were in short supply as a result of companies were too busy making other glassware items during the War years. Both Mother and Nancy told me that I objected being fed from the bottle and at times I could be very irritable. The real reason as I found out much later in life that I was originally breast fed by my real mother for 4 months and when I was taken away from her milk supply I reacted strongly to the fact being bottle fed when arriving at my adoptive parents household. I was told on the continual breaking of the tomato sauce bottles, they eventually gave up in feeding me milk from the bottle. From then on I drank milk from a mug.

My first cot was an old orange fruit box, which my parents obtained from the nearby Richmond Market as they were unable at first to afford a proper cot for me. My fruit box cot was lined with newspapers and blankets, which lasted me for several months. Eventually I was lucky enough to have a larger second hand cot. Dad was asked to paint the cot, he said why bother, he will eventually outgrow the cot.

By the age of 8 months I was walking and being a nuisance around the Restaurant. My mother had to make sure that I wasn't in the kitchen where there was a lot of activity occurring with respect to the cooking.

Many of the people that that lived there had a low income and generally people were battling to survive especially during World War 2. Bridge Road itself in the early forties was a height of activity. The Road was busy with many different types of businesses, such as hotels, clothing stores and various food shops. The tram ran up and down Bridge Road on a regular basis from the early hours of the morning to late at night. Most people living in Richmond generally caught the tram or walked. It was the only very few affluent people in Richmond that could afford a car.

The Restaurant was located on the south-west corner of Bridge Road and Mary Street Richmond, about a few hundred metres eastwards from the Richmond Town Hall. My sister Nancy was eleven years older than me. The Far East Restaurant was one of the first Chinese Restaurants in the eastern working class areas of Melbourne.

We had people coming far and wide sampling the various Chinese food. People bought along their saucepans and billy’s to collect their favourite Chinese food such as fried rice, spring rolls, dim sims and other well known Chinese dishes.

Prior to starting school I lived a very sheltered life as Mum wanted to be close to me as often as possible. I had no friends in Richmond of my age to play with as Mum didn't want me to be subjected to any racial abuse and being bullied. I basically made my own fun. To make my own fun I would be playing by myself in a make believe world. I was timid, shy and starting to develop a stammer.

I can still remember the people coming in to the Restaurant, as I would be sitting very quietly by myself on a table nearby to the serving counter kitchen playing with my matchbox toys, and occasionally reading. Some of the ladies especially would come up and kiss me and saying to me “kissing a Chinese boy is good luck”. I use to hate some of the ladies kissing me as their breath would normally smell of alcohol or cigarettes. I found the alcoholic fumes overpowering, as I later found out that many of the ladies had been drinking cheap wine, beer and spirits. After a while when the ladies approached me, I generally went inside to another room behind the serving counter. I often use to say to my mother why is it that your breath doesn’t smell like the other Australian ladies. Mum would laugh and say to me “your breath won’t smell if you don’t drink alcohol”.

My parents didn’t wish to send me to the nearby kindergarten as they couldn’t afford to. I learnt to speak both English and Cantonese at the same time at home. The Cantonese that I spoke was of the Toishan dialect. Mum would say to me concentrate on your Cantonese first, as you will be learning English shortly anyway at school. Mum was always the practical one. Anything I wanted, it had to be said in Cantonese. I use to love learning Chinese from the Chinese Cooks. Growing up in this environment I soon became a loner to which I am still very much so to this day.

Mother was always telling me not to be like my father and his friends and that I should study hard and become successful in life. My Dad came from a rich family and as such was spoilt by his mother. My grandfather William S Hoey always wanted his children to marry Chinese persons of a good background. Even though my grandfather was of some standing in the Chinese community no Chinese family in Australia wanted their daughters to associate with my father Albert Gin when he was single, as they considered him to be a person of ill repute.

As my paternal adoptive grandfather wanted all children to be married. He wanted his son Albert to find a suitable Chinese woman. He married my poor Mum, who was from a middle class Chinese family in China. On marrying my mother all he wanted to do was to live a decadent life, being pampered and having no responsibility.