New Stories, Bold Legends: Stories from Sydney Lunar Festival

In the stories of Chinese and Asian people in Australian history, there’s one group that’s noticeably missing: women! There were many notable Chinese men in Sydney’s early days and in the 20th century. If you’ve been listening to this podcast series, you’ve discovered some of them. But where are the ladies? Many historians have glossed over Chinese women in Sydney’s history. It’s true that they were a small population, especially in the very early years of the colony. But they were not non-existent! Combing through newspapers and archives, we can find hundreds of women of Chinese descent making their lives in Sydney in the 1800s and 1900s.  So it’s up to us. We can continue to ignore them or we can try to find out more about them. We may not know everything about their lives – where they came from, how they spent their days – but by researching their stories we can begin to have an idea of these early settlers. In this episode, we touch on the lives of a handful of Sydney’s Chinese women. Their weddings and parties, their fundraising for the Red Cross, their activism – and we will say their names. https://newstories.net.au/episode-5-the-lives-of-sydneys-early-chinese-women/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

William Liu was a tireless campaigner for the rights of other Chinese Australians to live and settle peacefully in this country. Earlier in his life, he had been instrumental in exporting Australia’s department store model to China and Hong Kong. William fervently believed that economic ties between the two countries was the key to a strong relationship. He was often a lone voice in his fight, but he eventually saw success with the normalisation of relations between China and Australia in 1972. More importantly, the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 officially ended the White Australia Policy. In 1983, William was appointed to the Order of the British Empire. He was a true Australian pathfinder, bringing hope and security to hundreds of Chinese Australians. He died in 1983 on Anzac Day. https://newstories.net.au/william-liu-the-pathfinder-who-fought-for-chinese-rights/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Shying is the first known Chinese person to arrive in Australia and make a life Down Under. He emigrated to the colony at Sydney as a young man in 1818, just 30 years after the First Fleet. He was a skilled tradesman and earned his keep as a carpenter before moving out west and becoming a publican.  John Shying was a keen property developer, buying and selling land and building houses and hotels. Basically, he dealt in property and booze – quintessential Australian pastimes! With his English-born wife, he had four sons. All of the Shying boys would go into trade as carpenters, undertakers and merchants. Between them they had at least 31 children, meaning that there are literally thousands of descendants of Australia’s first Chinese settler in Australia today.  There’s an idea amongst European Australians that if you can trace your lineage back to the early years of the colony, you are part of “Australian Royalty”. So if your last name is Shying or Dunn, Slayford, Owen, Proctor or Murphy, you may very well be a part of Australian Royalty through Australia’s first known Chinese immigrant. https://newstories.net.au/john-shying-the-story-of-australias-first-known-chinese-settler/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Professor Charlie Teo is one of Australia’s leading brain surgeons and is known for operating on brain tumours that have been considered by many others as ‘inoperable’. He’s the only Australian neurosurgeon to be Board Certified in both Australia and the US, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, has also been named the Most Trusted Person in Australia for the last five consecutive years.  Professor Teo primarily works at the Prince of Wales Private Hospital in Sydney and established the Centre for Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery. He has been invited to many distinguished universities in more than 50 countries as Visiting Professor, including Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt and Stanford universities in the USA, Marburg University in Germany and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. In 2017 he founded the Charlie Teo Foundation, which raises awareness and funds the frontlines of brain cancer research, with a focus on Australian research, clinical trials and patients. https://newstories.net.au/charlie-teo/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ien Ang, is a Professor of Cultural Studies at Western Sydney University. Ien is Chinese and was born in Indonesia but her parents migrated to The Netherlands when she was 12.  Her books, including Watching Dallas, Desperately seeking the audience and On not speaking Chinese, are recognised as classics in the field and her work has been translated into many languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, German, Korean, and Spanish. Her most recent books are The art of engagement: culture, collaboration, innovation (University of Western Australia Press, 2011, co-edited with Elaine Lally and Kay Anderson) and Cultural diplomacy: beyond the national interest (Routledge, 2016, co-edited with Yudhishthir Raj Isar and Phillip Mar). Professor Ang’s work deals broadly with patterns of cultural flow and exchange in our globalised world, focusing on issues such as: the formation of audiences and publics the politics of identity and difference migration, ethnicity and multiculturalism in Australia and Asia issues of representation in contemporary cultural institutions. She is a champion of collaborative cultural research and has worked extensively with partner organisations such as the NSW Migration Heritage Centre, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Special Broadcasting Service, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the City of Sydney. Professor Ang has had the title of Distinguished Professor conferred on her by Western Sydney University in recognition of her outstanding research record and eminence. She is the first person at the University to be conferred with this honour. https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/people/researchers/ien_ang https://newstories.net.au/ien-ang/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kate Bagnall is a historian and expert on Chinese migration in Australia. Kate’s fascination with China start decades ago and she’s currently co-editing a publication on Chinese Australian women, from some of the earliest women who settled here from China. It’s an important initiative because, as Kate says, we tend of think of Chinese Australian history as a history of men and there isn’t much information around on the contribution or participation of Chinese women in Australian life. Kate is slowly uncovering some of this history. And she’s finding stories that need to be told.  There is other academic research, by Alanna Kamp, actually about the erasure of Chinese-Australian women from our history books and from research. Kate, along with nine other historians, are looking to change that. Kate’s historical work focuses on Chinese migration and settlement in the British settler colonies of the Pacific Rim before 1940. She has a PhD in Australian history from the University of Sydney, and is an ARC DECRA Fellow in the School of Humanities & Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong. Her first book, Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement and Resistance (co-edited with Sophie Couchman), was published by Brill in January 2015. As mentioned, she has also done research on Chinese women in colonial New South Wales and has put together an edited collection about Chinese women in Australian history, with chapters by nine other historians. The book is yet to be published but will be the first academic history book on the lives of Chinese Australian women before 1950. Katebagnall.com https://newstories.net.au/kate-bagnall/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Angela Foong is a fashion designer who co-founded the Newcastle-based label ‘High Tea with Mrs Woo’ with her sisters, Rowena and Juliana. The siblings were born in Malaysia and their family migrated to Australia in 1988. Fascinated with the memory, and the memoir of clothing, they explore the ability of fashion to unfold a great yarn. They describe each garment they make from a moment in time, a truth or a reminiscence – like Stuck in Ueno, Irreversible, We’re all mad here, Waiting for Jack to name a few. The name ‘High Tea with Mrs Woo’ is a nostalgic nod to the colonial-style high teas the siblings experienced when they were younger.  The sisters say they are conscious of making decisions that support their sustainability practices on a daily basis, and work towards bettering the way they make, sell and consume things. This includes recycling and engaging in energy-saving functions as much as possible. All paper and textile waste is recycled or re-used. Furniture and fittings are sourced as locally as possible, vintage or second-hand, hand restored, re-worked, or designed and built with local skills. Trained in Graphic Design and Visual Communication, Rowena and Juliana draw on their diverse design skills whilst Angela brings her Economics and Commerce background to the table. High Tea with Mrs Woo’s store was established in 2004 and is in Cooks Hill, Newcastle. It has their clothing range and a curated selection of jewellery, accessories and shoes. It also features hand-crafted tableware, textiles and objects for gifts and home. http://www.highteawithmrswoo.com.au/ https://newstories.net.au/angela-foong/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pamela See is one of the artists featured in the Sydney Lunar Festival in 2019. Born in Brisbane to Chinese Malaysian parents who migrated to Australia, Pamela is the artist behind the beautiful sheep lantern inspired by the traditional art of Chinese paper cutting.  Her technique bears resemblance to Foshan papercutting that emerged during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) in her maternal family home province of Guangdong.  Using a variety of knives, this style of papercutting is also applied to thin foils of metal. Over the past 20 years, Pamela has exhibited in Australia, China and the United States of America. This includes contributing to exhibitions at the International Curatorial and Studio Program (ICSP) in the US, the Qing Tong Museum in China, and the National Gallery of Australia.   Her artwork is held in several institutional and corporate collections including: The Australian War Memorial, Parliament House (Canberra), The Art Gallery of South Australia, Chinachem (Hong Kong) and Swire Properties (Beijing). She is presently undertaking a PhD at Griffith University investigating the capacity of papercut to be translated into a variety of media including: knitting, animation and sculpture. https://newstories.net.au/pamela-see/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jackie M is an expert on South-East Asian cuisine and has a whopping 1.9 million followers from around the world. She is a TV presenter, writer and pioneer of live video streaming, having broadcast the first of what would become a weekly cooking show back in 2012.  Jackie moved to Australia at the age of 17, studied IT and learnt multiple languages including French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Hakka, Cantonese and more.  After experimenting with recipes and running stalls at weekend markets, she eventually made the life-changing decision to ditch her IT career and follow full-time in the footsteps of her street-food vendor parents. She hasn’t looked back since. Jackie is also a proud sole parent to Noah, who was born with Down syndrome and a number of life-threatening conditions that saw him spend the first 7 months of his life in hospital. Through her public profile Jackie hopes to raise awareness of people with Down syndrome, and to inspire parents of sick children to see that life can be a blessing despite the challenges they face every day. https://jackiem.com.au/ https://newstories.net.au/jackie-m/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elaine Chia is CEO of City Recital Hall,  one of Sydney’s leading arts, entertainment and festival venues. Her career spans music, theatre and visual arts, and she is a passionate advocate for the arts. Elaine’s formal introduction into arts management began with the Australian Youth Orchestra. Her role on her first symphony orchestra tour was to source and coordinate host families for 110 young musicians in 10 cities across Australia. In 1996, she managed the National Music Camp with 240 music students and 100 staff and volunteers. Her role as coordinator, wrangler, persuader and responsible big sister was thus cemented. Elaine’s journey next took her to Belvoir St Theatre as business manager, then to Sydney Conservatorium of Music as marketing and development manager. Elaine moved to Melbourne in 2004 where she took on the role of acting CEO of the AMEB, and later, business and finance manager at Heide Museum of Modern Art. She returned to the Sydney Conservatorium in 2007, to the newly created role of international development manager. She established new off-shore programs and tours in Asia, Europe and the United States. In 2010 Elaine joined the Australia Council for the Arts, where she oversaw the Australian representation at three Venice Biennales, and the redevelopment of the new Australian Pavilion, which opened in 2015 on time and on budget. Both projects were delivered as public-private partnerships. She joined City Recital Hall in 2016 as the first CEO of the not-for-profit company established to manage and curate an annual program at the 1238-seat venue. In 2.5 years, the number of concert and events presented by the company has quadrupled. Elaine is the chair of Contemporary Asian Australian Performance, a resident company at Carriageworks which is dedicated to making exceptional contemporary Asian Australian work for all audiences. She also actively supports the arts as a donor, because she can, and therefore, simply, she should. When Elaine is not living and breathing the arts, she loves to run, mainly to balance out her love of gelato. https://www.cityrecitalhall.com/ https://newstories.net.au/elaine-chia/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.