Chung Wah Hall, Perth珀斯中华会馆

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Australia · Western Australia · Northbridge, Perth · 128 James Street, Northbridge, Perth

First built

Association founded in 1909, registered in 1910 · The hall was inaugurated at midnight on Lunar New Year 1911; listed on the Western Australian State Register of Heritage Places

Heritage status

Western Australia State Heritage Register

Overview

The Chung Wah Association of Western Australia was founded in 1909 and formally registered in 1910, the first ethnic community organization in Western Australia, established at a time of increasingly severe anti-Chinese legislation in order to represent and negotiate on behalf of the Chinese community. Its hall, at 128 James Street, Northbridge, was inaugurated at an auspicious hour of eleven o'clock on Lunar New Year's Eve in 1911; this is today's Chung Wah Hall, listed on the Western Australian State Register of Heritage Places, and it remains to this day the center of activity for the Western Australian Chinese community, providing aged-care services, cultural education, lion dance, musical ensembles, and dragon boating. Its nature must be honestly noted: this is the hall of a general association of fellow-provincials rather than an independent temple; a shrine and ancestral tablets are enshrined inside the hall, its religious function attached to the association's building rather than standing as an independent temple, unlike the freestanding temples of the eastern states (such as the Sze Yup Guandi Temple or the Temple of the Holy Triad). No record has been found of a surviving nineteenth-century freestanding Chinese temple building in Western Australia.

Highlights

• The first ethnic community organization in Western Australia (1909)
• The hall was inaugurated at midnight on Lunar New Year 1911
• Listed on the Western Australian State Register of Heritage Places
• An association shrine rather than an independent temple