Empire, orphans, and honourable Aussies

Are the Chinese still that swamping peril we once imagined them to be in our current fathoming of China as the emerging superpower? Are Chinese Australians still just dutiful minions, somewhat exotic, neither expected nor encouraged to take on an unbridled place in the public life of Australia?

Apart from Penny Wong, few Chinese are seen in our public life. What does the Chinese government think of that? And if their emissaries should visit our National Museum or examine our history curriculum, they might conclude that the Chinese are at best presented as useful minions, albeit with warm intentions.

The evil connotations of the Yellow Peril are gone and in their place are signs of the humanising and rehabilitation of John Chinaman, once the pest to the White Man’s progress towards his New Britannia.

In the ‘Landmarks’ Exhibition at our National Museum in Canberra, ten ‘Landmarks’ tell the story of the white settlement of Australia. One of these is themed ‘pastoralism and gold’, featuring the iconic windmill of Elsey Station. In its online version the Chinese appear twice:

Some of Gunn's possessions, including small tokens of remembrance given to her by the Elsey station cook, Ah Cheong…

and

No history of Australia would be complete without an account of the gold rushes and their impact on Australia. Landmarks traces how gold shaped ideas about representation and government on the Victorian goldfields, and challenged law and order in the Lachlan valley of New South Wales.

A lavishly decorated Chinese costume, used for many years in Bendigo's Easter parade, evokes that community's efforts for recognition as equal citizens.

Ah Cheong was a grateful servant, eh! And what about the lavishly decorated Chinese costume? At best a case of positive Orientalism, and at worst a case of glossing over the tyranny visited upon the Chinese during and after the gold rushes. A replica of the‘Roll Up, Roll Up, No Chinese’ banner used in one of the infamous Lambing Flat Riots of 1861 would have been a more fitting artefact than the lavishly decorated Chinese costume.

At any rate a closer look at the Chinese participation in the Bendigo Easter Parade in the 1890s would suggest that it was more an opportunistic display of exotic colour to win acceptance from a generally disdainful and hostile populace. On at least two occasions the Chinese were treated with such indignity in planning committee meetings that they chose to withdraw from the parades. These incidents are germane to the fate of the C19 Chinese, marooned in Australia, too poor to return to their ancestral hearth.

Historically the Chinese were at best seen as a useful and exotic people. Perhaps even now they ought to be grateful for their place in Australia. Charlie Teo, the intrepid folk hero brain surgeon, did not escape censure for his dignified critique of our society in his recent Australia Day address. Likewise Chinese Australians were told in popular media that they should not have complained about the TV casting of white actors to play Billy Sing, our Gallipoli hero, and his Shanghainese father.

Perhaps Charlie Teo should have known better. There has been a Lambing Flat Chinese Tribute Gardens in Young since around 2000: ‘In recognition of the contribution of the Chinese community to the settlement of Young in the 1860s and to the ongoing contributions of the Chinese people to Australia as a Nation.’ Not a single word, though, alludes to the Lambing Flat Riots, a persistent series of attacks upon the Chinese.