Hawking
Fruit and vegetables were often sold door to door by the people who grew the produce.
'Hawking', as this was called, had a long and unfortunate association with swindling. From 1834, Sydney's hawkers had been required to obtain a license. The purpose, according to the Sydney Gazette, was to protect shopkeepers and separate the 'scum' from other peddlers. By the end of the century, 'hawking' referred more generally to the selling of goods by mobile vendors whether travelling by cart or on foot. But as many, if not most, hawkers were from ethnic minority groups such as the Chinese and Lebanese – or 'Syrians' as they were called - the term retained a sense of disapproval.
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Recalling his boyhood in Cammeray in the 1890s, Edgar Wright remembered gardeners carrying their 'quite excellent vegetables' door to door in 'baskets slung across their shoulders'. At Christmas they offered jars of ginger and 'lychee nuts' to housewives 'with a friendly grin and a ceremonial bow'. Whether these were exotic gifts or produce for sale is unclear. Almost certainly they were imported to Australia by Chinese merchants.
The process of applying for, or renewing, a hawking license was onerous, particularly if language was a barrier to understanding. In 1889, St Leonards hawker Wong Hay was asked to produce his license by a police officer and fined 10 shillings, with the option to spend 48 hours in goal, when he could not. Hay's experience was not uncommon.
While is not clear how widely used it was, Sun Johnson's Chinese/English phrase book, The Self Educator, provides insights into the exchanges between Chinese vendors and their customers: 'No they are not dry', 'It is fresh inside', 'No Madame, I can't do that', 'She has not paid me yet' are some examples. The exchanges refer only to women, presumably because they were the main customers for household provisions. The phrases also show that haggling was common and transactions could be difficult. This was ultimately a society defined by racial hierarchy in which 'white' people sat at the top. A European woman had more status than a Chinese man. Accordingly, the phrase book's imaginary Chinese vendor always assumed a deferential position in relation to his customer.
But the dealings were no doubt often cordial and sometimes even friendly. Chinese men could rarely afford to bring their wives to Australia and loneliness must surely have been acute for some. Despite general social disapproval, there were 'inter-racial' marriages which may well have developed from friendly relationships between customer and vendor; there would have been few other opportunities for Chinese men to meet women across the ethnic divide. Chen Ah Teak was in the minority as a Chinese man with a European wife.
The page from The Self Educator (below left) shows helpful phrases for dealing with difficult customers (State Library of NSW).
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