A Chinese Australian is an Australian of Chinese heritage. They are part of the ethnic Chinese diaspora (or Overseas Chinese). Overseas Chinese (華僑 in pinyin: huáqiáo, or 華胞 huábāo, or 僑胞 qiáobāo) are ethnic Chinese who live outside of the China. ...

The early of Chinese Australians had involved significant immigration from villages of the Pearl River Delta in Southern China. Less well known are the kind of society Chinese Australians came from, the families they left behind and what their intentions were in coming. Many Chinese were lured to Australia by the gold rush (since the mid-19th century, Australia was dubbed the New Gold Mountain after those in North America), sent money to their families in the villages, regularly visited their families and retired to the village after years working as a Sydney market gardener, Cairns shopkeeper or Melbourne cabinet maker. As with many overseas Chinese groups the world over, early Chinese immigrants to Australia established Chinatowns in several major cities, such as in Sydney (Chinatown, Sydney), Brisbane and in Melbourne. A village is a human settlement commonly found in rural areas. ... Map of Pearl River Delta The Pearl River Delta (PRD, 珠江三角洲 pinyin: Zhū Jiāng Sānjiǎozhōu, Cantonese IPA: dzy1 gɔŋ1 sɑm1gɔk3dzɐʊ1), China, occupies the low-lying areas alongside the Pearl River estuary where the river flows into the South China Sea. ... Gold rush ad A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers into the area of a dramatic discovery of commercial quantities of gold. ... Sydney Harbour looking south from the vicinity of the Sydney Harbour Bridge towards the CBD skyline; the Opera House is visible in the background on the left. ... Operation Market Garden was an Allied military operation in World War II, which took place in September 1944. ... Cairns is a regional city and Local Government Area located in far north Queensland, Australia. ... A shopkeeper is an individual who owns a shop. ... The City of Melbournes coat of arms Melbourne is the capital and largest city of the state of Victoria, and the second largest city in Australia (after Sydney), with a population of 3,600,650 in the Melbourne metropolitan area (June 2004) and 61,670 in the City of... A Cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. ... New York City is home to one of the largest Chinatowns in North America, and is centered around Canal Street in the borough of Manhattan. ... Sydney Harbour looking south from the vicinity of the Sydney Harbour Bridge towards the CBD skyline; the Opera House is visible in the background on the left. ... Sydneys Chinatown is located within the southern central business district of the City of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, in the Haymarket area between Central Station and Darling Harbour. ... Brisbane by night Brisbane is the capital city of the state of Queensland, Australia. ... The City of Melbournes coat of arms Melbourne is the capital and largest city of the state of Victoria, and the second largest city in Australia (after Sydney), with a population of 3,600,650 in the Melbourne metropolitan area (June 2004) and 61,670 in the City of...

The White Australia Policy of the early 20th Century severely curtailed the development of the Chinese communities in Australia. However, since the advent of Multiculturalism as a government policy in the 1970s, many immigrants from Hong Kong have migrated to Australia. Mainland China and Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia) have also been a source of ethnic Chinese immigration. This badge from 1906 shows the use of the expression White Australia at that time The White Australia Power, the policy of excluding all non white people from the Australian continent, was the official policy of all governments and all mainstream political parties in Australia from the 1890s to the... Multiculturalism is a policy that emphasizes the unique characteristics of different cultures, especially as they relate to one another in receiving nations. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... In this map of China, the light-coloured areas represent Mainland China, while yellow coloured area refers to Taiwan. ...

Brief Chronology

Earliest arrivals: 1788 to 1848

From the very begining of the colony of New South Wales, links with China were established when several ships of the First Fleet, after dropping off their convict load, sailing for Canton to pick up goods for the return to England. The Bigge Report attributed the high level of tea drinking to 'the existence of an intercourse with China from the foundation of the Colony ...' That the ships carrying such cargo had Chinese crew members is likely and that some of the crew and possibly passengers embarked at the port of Sydney is probable. Certainly by 1818, Mak Sai Ying (also known as John Shying) had arrived and after a period of farming became, in 1829, the publican of The Lion in Parramatta. John Macarthur, a prominent pastoralist, employed three Chinese people on his properties in the 1820s. (Records may well have neglected others.) Motto: Orta Recens Quam Pura Nites (Newly Risen, How Brightly You Shine) Nickname: First State, Premier State Other Australian states and territories Capital Sydney Government Governor Premier Const. ... The First Fleet is the name given to the group of people and ships who sailed from England in May 1787 to establish the first European colony in New South Wales. ... There are multiple Cantons in China Canton City : Guangzhou Canton Province : Guangdong This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Ethnicity... A hot cup of tea A tea bush. ... 1818 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1829 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... A public house, usually known as a pub, is a drinking establishment found mainly in the Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries influenced by British cultural heritage. ... Parramatta is a city, suburb and Local Government Area in Sydney, Australia, 25 kilometres west of the central business district (CBD) in Western Sydney. ... Alternate meanings: John D. MacArthur, John R. Macarthur John Macarthur (1767-1834), soldier, politician and pioneer of the Australian wool industry, was born in Devonshire, but the MacArthurs are an old Argyll family, from which the American military hero General Douglas MacArthur was also descended. ... Events and Trends Nationalistic independence movements helped reshape the world during this decade: Greece declares independence from the Ottoman Empire (1821). ...

Indentured Labour: 1848 to 1853

After transportation of convicts ceased in the 1840s, the increasing demand for labour led to much larger numbers of Chinese men arriving as indentured labourers, to work as shepherds and irrigation experts for private landowners and the Australian Agricultural Company. These workers seemingly all came from Fujian via the port then known as Amoy (Xiamen) and some may have been brought involuntarily, as kidnapping (or the 'sale of pigs', as it was called), was common. Events and Trends Technology First use of anaesthesia in an operation, by Crawford Long War, peace and politics First signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) on February 6, 1840 at Waitangi New Zealand. ... An Indentured servant is an unfree labourer under contract to work (for a specified amount of time) for another person, often without any pay, but in exchange for accommodation, food, other essentials and/or free passage to a new country. ... In a draw in a mountainous region, a shepherd guides a flock of about 20 sheep amidst scrub and olive trees. ... Irrigation in the Heart of the Sahara Irrigation (in agriculture) is the replacement or supplementation of rainfall with water from another source in order to grow crops. ... Fujian (Chinese: 福建; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Fu-chien; Postal System Pinyin: Fukien, Foukien; local transliteration Hokkien from Min Nan Hok-kiàn) is one of the provinces on the southeast coast of China. ... Xiamen (Simplified Chinese: 厦门; Traditional Chinese: 廈門; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hsiamen) is a coastal sub-provincial city in Fujian Province, southern China. ...

Between 1848 and 1853, over 3,000 Chinese workers on contracts arrived via the Port of Sydney for employment in the NSW countryside. Resistance to this cheap labour occurred as soon as it arrived, and, like such protests later in the century, was heavily mixed with racism. Little is known of the habits of such men or their relations with other NSW residents except for those that appear in the records of the courts and mental asylums. Some stayed for the term of their contracts and then left for home, but there is evidence that others spent the rest of their lives in NSW. 1848 is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 2003 GMO USDA protest Protest expresses relatively overt reaction to events or situations: sometimes in favour, more often opposed. ... A Black person drinks out of a water fountain designated for black people in 1939 at a streetcar terminal. ... A court is an official, public forum which a public power establishes by lawful authority to adjudicate disputes, and to dispense civil, labour, administrative and criminal justice under the law. ... A psychiatric hospital (also called a mental hospital or asylum) is a hospital specializing in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ... A contract is any legally-enforceable promise or set of promises made by one party to another and, as such, reflects the policies represented by freedom of contract. ...

Gold Rushes: 1853 to 1877

Attempts at importing contracted labour ended with the discovery of gold as those contracted at minimal wages could and did simply head for the diggings. Large numbers of Chinese men were working on the Victorian goldfields and on the smaller NSW fields in the mid 1850s. With major gold finds in NSW and the passing of more restrictive anti-Chinese legislation in Victoria, thousands of miners moved to NSW in 1859, and more miners continued to come from China. Fish curing, stores and dormitories in places such as The Rocks, soon developed to support the miners on the fields as well as those on their way to the diggings or back to China. The presence of numerous Chinese on the diggings led to anti-Chinese agitation, including violent clashes such as the Lambing Flat riots, the immediate result of which was the passing of an Act in 1861 designed to reduce the number of Chinese people entering the colony. General Name, Symbol, Number gold, Au, 79 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 6, d Appearance metallic yellow Atomic mass 196. ... Motto: Peace and Prosperity Nickname: Garden State Other Australian states and territories Capital Melbourne Government Governor Premier Const. ... Events and Trends Technology Production of steel revolutionised by invention of the Bessemer process Benjamin Silliman fractionates petroleum by distillation for the first time First transatlantic telegraph cable laid First safety elevator installed by Elisha Otis Science Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species, putting forward the theory of evolution... 1859 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... George Street, the main street of The Rocks The Rocks is a tourist precinct and historic area near the central business district (CBD) of Sydney, Australia. ... The Lambing Flat riots or Lambing Flat massacre were a series of violent anti-Chinese demonstrations that took place in the Burrangong region, in New South Wales, Australia. ... 1861 is a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

From miners to artisans: 1877 to 1901

The last gold rush in the eastern colonies of Australia occurred in 1873 in the far north of Queensland at the Palmer River, and by 1877 there were 20,000 Chinese there. After this gold rush ended people either returned to China or dispersed across the Australian colonies. This openness of the land borders and the rise in Chinese numbers after a period of decline again raised anti-Chinese fears in NSW, resulting in restrictive Acts in 1881 and 1888. 1873 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Motto: Audax at Fidelis (Bold but Faithful) Nickname: Sunshine State/Smart State Other Australian states and territories Capital Brisbane Government Governor Premier Const. ... 1877 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

As gold rushing was always a risky endeavour, Chinese people began trying other ways of earning a living. People opened stores and became merchants and hawkers, while a fishing and fish curing industry operating north and south of Sydney supplied dried fish in the 1860s and 1870s to Chinese people throughout NSW and Victoria. By the 1890s Chinese people were represented in a wide variety of occupations including scrub cutters, interpreters, cooks, tobacco farmers, market gardeners, cabinet-makers, storekeepers and drapers, though by this time the fishing industry seemed to have disappeared. At the same time, Sydney’s proportion of the Chinese residents of NSW had steadily increased; one prominent Chinese Australian was Mei Quong Tart, who ran a popular tea house in the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney. A store is an enclosure for holding articles. ... Merchants function as professional traders, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves. ... Hawker-Siddeley was a British aircraft manufacturing company. ... Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish. ... Events and trends Italian unification under King Victor Emmanuel II. Wars for expansion and national unity continue until the incorporation of the Papal States (March 17, 1861 - September 20, 1870). ... Events and Trends Technology The invention of the telephone (1876) by Alexander Graham Bell. ... The 1890s were sometimes referred to as the Mauve Decade, because William Henry Perkins aniline dye allowed the widespread use of that colour in fashion, and also as the Gay Nineties, under the then-current usage of the word gay which referred simply to merriment and frivolity, with no... Interpreter can mean one of the following: In communication, an interpreter is a person whose role is to facilitate dialogue between two parties that do not use the same language. ... Cook can refer to Cook the profession, see also Cooking Cook is the title of a 1975 album by Premiata Forneria Marconi. ... Species N. glauca N. longiflora N. rustica N. sylvestris N. tabacum Ref: ITIS 30562 as of 2002 August 28 Tobacco () is a broad-leafed plant of the nightshade family, indigenous to North and South America, whose dried and cured leaves are often smoked (see tobacco smoking) in the form of... Farmer spreading grasshopper bait in his alfalfa field. ... Cabinet making is the practice of utilizing many woodworking skills to create cabinets, shelving and furniture. ... The term draper can refer to a number of individuals and places. ... The QVB, or Queen Victoria Building, is a shopping center located in the heart of the Sydney, Australia, CBD. Originally set aside as a market place in the 1800s, it was roofed and eventually architect George McRae designed the building. ...

The Era of White Australia Policy: 1901 to 1936

By the Australian Federation, Chinese people in NSW were a significant group, running numerous stores, an import trade, societies and several Chinese language newspapers. They were also part of an international community involved in political events in China, and also made donations at times of natural disaster. The immigration restrictions of 1888 had not had a great impact on total numbers and a continued inflow of Chinese from Queensland mitigated even this. The passing of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901, however, froze the Chinese communities of the late 19th century into a slow decline. Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... A natural disaster is the consequence or effect of a hazardous event, occurring when human activities and natural phenomenon (a physical event, such as a volcanic eruption, earthquake, landslide etc. ... 1888 is a leap year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... This badge from 1906 shows the use of the expression White Australia at that time The White Australia Power, the policy of excluding all non white people from the Australian continent, was the official policy of all governments and all mainstream political parties in Australia from the 1890s to the...

Continued discrimination, both legal and social, reduced the occupational range of Chinese people until market gardening, always a major occupation, became far and away the representative role of 'John Chinaman'. These men often had to go back to their villages in China in order to find wives, then relied on the minority of merchants to assist them to negotiate with the immigration bureaucracy. Only the rise of a new generation of Australian-born Chinese people, combined with new migrants that the merchants and others sponsored, both legally and illegally, prevented the Chinese population of NSW disappearing entirely. To discriminate is to make a distinction. ...

War & Refugees: 1936 to 1949

By the war period numbers had nevertheless fallen greatly and Australian-born people of Chinese background began to predominate over Chinese-born people for the first time. Numbers increased rapidly again when refugees began to enter Australia as the result of Japan’s war in China and the Pacific. Some were Chinese crew members who refused to return to Japanese-held areas and others were residents of the many Pacific islands evacuated in the face of the Japanese advance. Still others included those with Australian birth who were able to leave Hong Kong and the villages on the approach of the Japanese. At the same time the anti-Japanese War helped inspire the development of organisations focusing on China as a whole, rather than the region of a migrant's ancestry. A few of these organizations, such as the Chinese Youth League, survive to this day. The Second Sino-Japanese War was a major invasion of eastern China by Japan preceding and during World War II. It ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. ... US landings in the Pacific, 1942–1945 The Pacific War, which is known in Japan as the Greater East Asia War, occurred in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in Asia. ...

The Era of Assimilation: 1949 to 1973

In the post-war period, assimilation became the dominant policy and this led to some relaxation to migration and citizenship laws. At the same time "cafes" (as Chinese restaurants were known in Australia during the 1950s) began to replace market gardens as the major source of employment and avenue for bringing in new migrants, both legal and illegal. In addition, some students of Chinese background arrived under the Colombo Plan from various parts of Asia. Assimilation, from Latin assimilatio meaning to render similar, is used to describe various phenomena: The process of assimilating new ideas into a schema (cognitive structure). ... China has one of the richest culinary heritages on Earth. ... The Colombo Plan began in 1951, and is a regional organisation focused on social development. ...

The Era of Multiculturalism: 1973 to the present

Soon after the effective end of the White Australia Policy in 1973, immigrants of Chinese ancestry began to increase significantly. The first wave of arrivals were ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1970s; this was followed by economic migrants from Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s, whose families often settle in Sydney while the breadwinner returned to Hong Kong to continue earning an income - a significant reversal of the traditional migration pattern. This badge from 1906 shows the use of the expression White Australia at that time The White Australia Power, the policy of excluding all non white people from the Australian continent, was the official policy of all governments and all mainstream political parties in Australia from the 1890s to the... 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... This article provides extensive lists of events and significant personalities of the 1970s. ... // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 60s and 70s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... Sydney Harbour looking south from the vicinity of the Sydney Harbour Bridge towards the CBD skyline; the Opera House is visible in the background on the left. ...

After the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989, the Australian Prime Minister of the day, Bob Hawke, allowed students from mainland China to settle in Australia permanently. Since then, immigrants from northern China and Taiwan arrived in significant numbers for the first time. The Unknown Rebel — This famous photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener, depicts a lone protester who single-handedly halted the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour. ... 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Hon Bob Hawke Robert James Lee Hawke (born December 9, 1929), Australian trade union leader and politician, was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia. ...

New institutions were established for these arrivals and old ones such as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce revived; Chinese language newspapers were once again published. The equality of citizenship laws and family reunion immigration after 1972 meant that an imbalance of the sexes, once a dominant feature of the Chinese communities in Australia, was not an issue in these later migrations. 1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ...

Chinese Australian Communities Today

Today there are significant Chinese communities in all major Australian cities, the largest concentration being in Sydney. While Chinatowns continue to serve as the focal points of these communities, Chinese Australians have long settled in suburbs across the metropolitan areas, with their own shops, restaurants, churches, and Chinese language schools. A few areas have developed into satellite "Chinatowns"; for example, Sydney's "Little Shanghai" is in Ashfield, "Little Hong Kongs" in Chatswood and Hurstville, and "Little Saigon" in Cabramatta. These all contribute to the cosmopolitan character of modern urban Australia. Sydney Harbour looking south from the vicinity of the Sydney Harbour Bridge towards the CBD skyline; the Opera House is visible in the background on the left. ... New York City is home to one of the largest Chinatowns in North America, and is centered around Canal Street in the borough of Manhattan. ... Ashfield (pop. ... Categories: Incomplete Sydney suburbs | Suburbs of Sydney ... Hurstville is a Local Government Area within Sydney, Australia, and also a suburb within that area. ... Cabramatta is a suburb of Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, 32 km west of the Sydney CBD. It is a predominantly Chinese commercial area, with some Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese businesses also present. ...

Apart from shops selling imported Chinese language books, magazines, CDs and DVDs, there are also several Chinese language newspapers, three shortwave radio channels in Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as a number of Chinese language satellite television stations from around the world - all helping to bring the communities up-to-date with the events and cultures of their ancestral homes. CD may stand for: Compact Disc Canadian Forces Decoration Cash Dispenser (at least used in Japan) CD LPMud Driver Centrum-Demokraterne (Centre Democrats of Denmark) Certificate of Deposit ÄŒeské Dráhy (Czech Railways) Chad (NATO country code) Chalmers Datorförening (computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology) a 1960s... // DVD is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for storing data, including movies with high video and sound quality. ... A Grundig Shortwave receiver Shortwave radio operates between the frequencies of 3,000 kHz and 30 MHz (30,000 kHz) and came to be referred to as such in the early days of radio because the wavelengths associated with this frequency range were shorter than those commonly in use at... Cantonese (粵語/粤语, lit. ... This article is on all of the Northern Chinese dialects. ... Satellite television is television delivered by way of orbiting communications satellites located 37,000 km (22,300 miles) above the earth’s surface. ...

Like Chinese people across the world, Chinese Australians have a tradition of academic excellence; Chinese Australians are prominent among the top performers of the annual Higher School Certificate (NSW), Victorian Certificate of Education, and their counterparts in other states and territories. Perhaps surprisingly, few second-generation Chinese Australians learn the Chinese language at normal weekday schools (the reason for this is complex and beyond the scope of this article), but many do attend privately-run Chinese language classes on Saturdays. Higher School Certificate, or HSC for short, refers to the assessment applied to secondary school students who undertake years 11 and 12 in New South Wales, Australia; the name is applied both to the overall two-year assessment process and to the final exams. ... The Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) is the credential given to students who have completed Year 11 and Year 12 of their secondary schooling, in the state of Victoria, Australia. ...

People of Chinese descent are now well-represented across all professions in Australia; quite a few receive the prestigeous Order of Australia award every year. Since voting is compulsory in Australia, and given the rise of Pauline Hanson's anti-migrant policies in the 1990s, Chinese involvement in Australian politics is quite strong, with several representatives in Federal and State parliaments over the years. (See also Unity Party (Australia).) The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service. The Order was established on February 14, 1975, when Queen Elizabeth II, acting in her capacity of Queen of Australia, signed Letters Patent... A politically active Pauline Hanson with the Australian flag wrapped around her. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... Unity Party (Australia) is a small multiculturist party in Australia, formed in 1997 with the aim of opposing the rise of controversial right-wing politician Pauline Hanson. ...

Like many Chinese communities overseas, Cantonese has historically been the lingua franca of the Australian Chinese communities. However, recent arrivals from northern China and Taiwan mean that Mandarin is commonly spoken as well; both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese scripts can be seen, although local Chinese language newspapers tend to prefer the former. As Australia is an English speaking country, most Chinese Australians also have some knowledge about the English language, although the level of proficiency varies among recent immigrants; those who came from Hong Kong tend to know English better than those from Mainland China and Taiwan. Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Traditional Chinese characters are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... Simplified Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese: 简体字; Traditional Chinese: 簡體字; pinyin: jiǎntǐzì; also called 简化字/簡化字, jiǎnhuàzì) are one of two standard character sets of printed contemporary Chinese written language. ... In this map of China, the light-coloured areas represent Mainland China, while yellow coloured area refers to Taiwan. ...

References

• Brawley, Sean, The White Peril - Foreign Relations and Asian Immigration to Australasia and North America 1919-1978, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1995.
• Cushman, J.W., "A 'Colonial Casualty': The Chinese community in Australian Historiography", Asian Studies Association of Australia, vol.7, no 3, April, 1984.
• Fitzgerald, Shirley, Red Tape, Gold Scissors, State Library of NSW Press, Sydney, 1997.
• Macgregor, Paul (ed.), Histories of the Chinese in Australasia and the South Pacific, Museum of Chinese Australian History, Melbourne,1995.
• May, Cathie, Topsawyers: the Chinese in Cairns 1870 to 1920, James Cook University, Townsville, 1984.
• Williams, Michael, Chinese Settlement in NSW - A thematic history (Sydney: Heritage Office of NSW, 1999) http://www.heritage.NSW.gov.au

Related topics

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