Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre, Ararat阿拉拉特金山华人遗产中心

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Australia · Victoria · Ararat · Western Highway, Ararat, Victoria

First built

Opened in 2001 · Commemorates the discovery of the ‘Canton Lead’ gold seam by Chinese miners in 1857, which led to the founding of the town.

Overview

Ararat is the only town in Australia founded by Chinese: in 1857, a group of Cantonese miners who had landed at Robe in South Australia and walked overland to avoid Victoria's entry poll tax discovered an extremely rich alluvial gold seam as they passed through the area, calling it the ‘Canton Lead’; a settlement grew up around it, and Ararat was thereby founded as a town. The Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre opened in 2001, with architecture evoking Chinese imagery, and uses exhibits, images and reconstructed scenes to recreate the migration, labor, beliefs and exclusion experienced by Chinese during the gold-rush era. It should be noted honestly that this is a commemorative and interpretive heritage center, not a temple; the shrine and ritual displays inside are reconstructions for exhibition purposes, and no historical Chinese temple survives in Ararat. This site is central to understanding the ‘landing at Robe, overland trek into Victoria’ route that was key to Chinese migration in Australia.

Highlights

• The only town in Australia founded by Chinese
• The ‘Canton Lead’ gold seam was discovered in 1857
• A key point on the overland migration route from Robe into Victoria
• An interpretive heritage center that opened in 2001
• Not a temple; the ritual displays inside are reconstructions