Preserving Chinese Australian voices

SYDNEY — In Haymarket Chinatown, one of Sydney's best-known Chinese enclaves, the aroma of Chinese food, glowing shop signs marked with Chinese characters, and voices speaking dialects from across China fill the air.

Amid the busy crowds, the Museum of Chinese in Australia quietly watches people pass by.

Housed in the former Haymarket Library, the museum opened on Feb 22 during the celebrations for the Chinese New Year of the Horse, poised to tell the stories of Chinese Australians across more than 200 years of history.

"A lot of the stories out there used to be told from someone else's perspective," says Daphne Lowe Kelley, chair of MOCA. "It's really important that we — people of Chinese descent — start telling our own stories."

The theme of this year's International Museum Day on May 18 was "Museums Uniting a Divided World". The museum hopes to become a place for connection, reflection and celebration. As the first museum in New South Wales dedicated to Chinese Australian history, it focuses on preserving and presenting the community's heritage and contributions to Australian society.

The first recorded Chinese migrant to Australia was Mak Sai Ying from Guangdong province in South China, who arrived in Sydney in 1818. Today, that young man who stepped off the ship, the Laurel, has a lane named after him — Sai Ying Lane — near Circular Quay, about half an hour's walk from the museum.

Since his arrival, Chinese communities have spread across Australia for more than two centuries. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' 2021 census, people of Chinese ancestry make up 5.5 percent of the population, making them the country's fifth-largest ancestry group.

The early Chinese in Australia are often remembered as gold miners, market gardeners, hawkers, cooks or cabinet-makers. But the inaugural exhibition at the MOCA goes beyond these familiar images to explore a lesser-known chapter of Haymarket Chinatown's history.

Using old objects, vintage photographs and historical stories, the exhibition traces the lives of early Chinese merchant families over the past century. One oil painting re-creates the tearoom of businessman Mei Quong Tart, who worked to bridge cultural divisions during a period of strong anti-Chinese sentiment. In the painting, he stands at the entrance surrounded by people from different backgrounds, smiling warmly.

Visitors can also see an abacus once used at Kwong War Chong & Co, a menu from the Modern China Cafe, stamps and letter sheets from Wing Sang & Co, and promotional materials from Simpson Lee & Co, offering glimpses into the lively commercial world of early Haymarket.

"There was discrimination against the Chinese under the White Australia policy," Lowe Kelley says. "But the Chinese community did not simply accept it quietly. Some people petitioned authorities and wrote to government officials. They pushed back." She hopes visitors will recognize not only the hardships faced by earlier generations, but also their resilience.

"The most important message I want to convey to Chinese Australians is that though we are roughly 1.5 million people of Chinese descent, I want them to realize that we are proud. We call this place our home, but also not to forget where we came from and our culture, to maintain that, and also to rise above the image that was projected in the past and the difficulties that one faced earlier," she says.

Lowe Kelley says the inaugural exhibition focuses on the local history of Haymarket, but the museum's vision extends far beyond. Future exhibitions will reach into other parts of Australia, telling Chinese Australian stories from across the country. The museum also plans to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with overseas Chinese museums and Chinese communities in other parts of the world.

"There's an old saying: you have to know the past to understand the present," she says. "For many of the early Chinese, life here was not easy. There were many restrictions. Understanding that, and yet seeing the fact that the Chinese community has now significantly grown — that makes it all the more meaningful."