Even though I was born here I am constantly reminded of my “otherness” when people ask “where are you from?” followed by “no, where are you really from?” The truth is I know little of the culture that people associate me with, I can’t speak Chinese, my Caucasian partner uses chopsticks better than I do and even knows all about Chinese medicine and acupressure points.
When I was living in Hobart someone yelled out to me “go back to where you came from” and at the time my response was “where do you want me to go back to West Ryde(Sydney)?” The assumption that because my face is different to a Caucasian face must mean that I don’t belong to this country, which is ridiculous in itself considering the first faces in this country(ies) were not white.
But these encounters have only prompted my inquiry and investigation into the history of the early Chinese in Australia and to discover some of these histories that have been lost to the popular narrative. and like a lot of history in regional towns if you don’t talk to the older members or historians of the local communities this history remains hidden or forgotten.
Wun Thong was created to tell these stories and to discover these hidden histories. He is the the quintessential archetype of an old and wise Chinese man from an ancient and unknown world. Celestials as they were referred to by the British in those days. He is the old man figure that appears in the subtitled Kung Fu movies that dad used to bring home from work to watch.
His age and origins are ambiguous; he could equally be from Wandiligong, Victoria, a remnant survivor of the Buckland Valley riots (massacre); or much older than that, from the Ming or early Qing Dynasties.
What is known is that the archetype that Wun Thong represents, reflects the untold histories that are quite often buried throughout the Australian landscape, if you look closer you will find that there was a joss house, a herbalist, a market garden, water channels, plantations or land that was cleared by Chinese laborers,
The misconceptions that the early Chinese Australians were just here for the gold are kept in circulation because these histories are so buried, along with the violence and race riots inflicted on early Chinese Australians and their allies through the growing resentment and xenophobic attitudes. That were later reinforced by the White Australia policy. Along with the stories of interracial marriages and the offspring that hid their Chinese identity by changing their names and denying their heritage…because they were trying to fit in and assimilate.
It wasn’t until 1966 that the first steps were taken to end the long standing White Australia policy. Yet this did not end racism…my dad said his university years were one of the lonliest times of his life and mum was called a traitor in the 1980’s and I was at a playground and a kid was repeating “ching chong” and made up Chinese words in 2024.
But histories have a way of resurfacing, like the bronze baby Buddha figurine that was found by two men with metal detectors from Shark Bay, Western Australia. Buried in the sand, an antiquity that predates the early Dutch discoverers. This along with what is preserved in regional towns across Australia; like Loong the Imperial Dragon housed at Bendigo’s Golden Dragon Museum. Because it was in Australia it survived the Chinese Cultural revolution and has become one of the worlds oldest processional dragons.
So quite rightly Wun Thong could have been born in Wandlligong and not Quandong. The Chinese faces you see on the street could be 3rd or 4th generation Australian. Likewise, the Caucasian faces you see could be 2nd, 3rd generation Chinese. So this poses the question back, “Where are you from?”
See Wun Thongs latest ventures a new experimental sound project Wun Thong and The Dodgy Guru
Past Projects