Lei Yim Yung

The family story is that Lei Yim Yung was a Bak Shek village girl. She was Chun Yee Hop's first wife - they were married in 1904.

Yim Yung lived all her life in China. There was a story that she and Yee Hop did have children (four boys) but that they died in infancy. It was after this that they adopted Sun Teem, presumably to look after her while Yee Hop was back in New Zealand.

Yee Hop took a second wife in 1915, Wun Chu Lin, and they returned to New Zealand where they had numerous children.

in the late 1920s, Yee Hop, his second wife and their children returned to China and for a while they were all living under the same roof with Yim Yung. The idea was that the children would get a Chinese education. Sun Teem was left behind in Wellington to look after the business.

The parents returned with the youngest of the children, when the babies started to got sick in China. Mavis also went back either then or soon after because she was needed to translate in the shop.

Yim Yung was then left to raise the other six oldest girls who were left behind. These were Doris, Enid, Phyllis, Ina, Rona and Rosie.

Unfortunately it was not a good time to be in China because of the Japanese invasion. There were progressive skimishes from 1931. Gradually, as the Japanese moved further and further south, the girls were sent home to New Zealand one by one.

The last two to leave were Rona and Rosie. The youngest, Rosie, was very close to Yim Yung as she was the baby and had spent about six years with her. She told a very heart rending about how Yim Yung wrote to Yee Hop begging him not to send for the last two girls in her care as "they were all she had left". In the end Rona and Rosie barely made in out of China. The Japanese had infiltrated right through to Hong Kong and the two little girls had to flee in secret from the village. Rosie said that when it came time to leave, Yim Yung locked herself in the toilet and wouldn't come out.

When the girls got to Hong Kong they sent Yim Yung some fruit and a note to say they'd arrived safely. That was the last the family was in contact with Yim Yung. She died in China aged 89.