Source: The Age
IN MORE than 60 years of involvement in the See Yup Society, which runs one of Australia's biggest Chinese temples, Maurice Leong has served at various times as president, treasurer, secretary and caretaker.
At 87, he says, it's time to retire. But before he does, he has one last project. Inside the grand Buddhist-Taoist temple in Raglan Street, South Melbourne, are three rooms full of small wooden memorial tablets, in stacks up to 10 metres high.
Dating from the early 1850s, they record the deaths of 13,000 Chinese-Australians; their names, Chinese districts and villages.
With the help of students, he has set about cleaning each tablet, dusting and vacuuming generations of incense grit so they can be photographed.
From next month, their Old Chinese inscriptions will be translated and entered in a database available to the public.