Calendar 2017
January
- Sat. 28th Chinese Lunar New Year – Chinese Heritage Association of Australia talk on Yin & Yang of the Year of the Rooster at Museum of Sydney
- The Yin & Yang of the Rooster
As reliable as the rooster itself, crowing to announce the arrival of dawn each day; the Chinese Heritage Association of Australia will present the fifth in its series on the Yin and Yang of the Chinese Zodiac.
Celebrating the 2017 Year of the Rooster in imagery and idiom; this talk, by member Marilyn Sue Dooley, explores the culture and traditions associated with this colourful, courageous and conscientious creature.
May
- Saturday 20 May at 2pm – Speaker at Woden Southern Cross Club, Canberra for PPSEAWA (Pan Pacific & South East Asian Women’s Association in ACT) is an international organisation. PPSEAWA objectives are to strengthen the bonds of peace by fostering a better understanding and friendship among women of all Pacific and SEA area. We currently have 30 members.
Topic : Scones & Snakes: The Women of the Bush Carry On
In this talk, Marilyn Sue Dooley will use her own Irish Chinese family as a case study to explore the lives and legacy of the brave women who migrated to Australia during the nineteenth century, and made new lives in distant and isolated places. Through mixed marriages {both ethnic and religious}, bush childbirths and the hazards of fire, floods and droughts, these women have left their descendants an inheritance of true pioneer spirit.
Tuesday 23 May attend information session National Library of Australia on “Finding Passenger Lists”.
June
- Sunday 4th June 2017, 1200 – Queensland Day Dinner- Glenmore Homestead – Rockhampton & District Historical Society
Speaker: Marilyn Sue Dooley
Topic: “Now, that’s a doozy of a yarn!”: A Celebration and a Cautionary Tale about Oral History R&DHS Member Marilyn Sue Dooley will explore just what it is that gives such value to Oral History as both public and private record; whilst also cautioning against accepting, without question, the full truth of all the stories being told. Marilyn will also discuss the considerations and confidentiality that are the responsibility of the interviewer towards the subject; together with ideas for the conservation of oral history recordings, as well as curating and giving access to them.
- 23- 25 June – Melbourne – at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) Conference CCCAV 2017 Conference “Beyond the New Gold Mountain” – Conference Host: Chinese Community Council of Australia (Victoria Chapter
Abstract: CELESTIALS IN CAPRICORNIA: A HERITAGE PERSPECTIVE
Marilyn Sue Dooley
This paper will explore the presence of Chinese merchants, market gardeners and miners in Central Queensland during the nineteenth century. It will also look at surviving records of mixed marriages performed by the Primitive Methodist Church and the successive generations of Australian born descendants.
Newspapers of the day report incidents of floods, encounters with the law, tragedies befalling individuals, store and hotel advertisements, burials, and community donations, as some of many activities within the local Chinese Groups.
It is now 150 years since the local anti-Chinese riots on the Crocodile Creek Goldfield; and at least a decade longer since Chinese shepherds worked on pioneer sheep stations in Central Queensland.
It is a little-known history and frustratingly fragmentary in its documentation; particularly for those of us trying to weave a thread of heritage. But as the Chinese Proverb goes: “A bird does not sing because it has an answer. A bird sings because it has a song.”
July
- Family Gathering 2017 for descendants, family and friends of Sarah Jane Stewart Yin {Conroy, Yin, Mitchell} on 14/15/16 July Events at Gathering include Mah Jong session at local library, visit to bush cemetery and day long get together at Ridgelands Hall Central Queensland. Enquiries: mallysue97@gmail.com
- Friday 14 July 10-11:30 am Marilyn is talking at Rockhampton Library, Bolsover Street. Bookings essential with library on 07 4936 8043. This is a public event. Free with Cuppa.
- Topic: CANTON – CAPRICORNIA – CANBERRA: The girl with the alien ancestor who once joined the Red Army.
In this talk, combining Chinese history in Central Queensland with a present day look at a family heritage, Marilyn Sue Dooley will explore the customs and traditions that many nineteenth century Chinese brought with them from their Cantonese homeland, the attitudes and events that they encountered when gold, in particular, brought them to the Capricorn region; and the adventures descendants can have with travels in search of a cultural heritage.
August
- Wednesday 09 August 2017 ACFS NSW Talk, Tom Keneally Centre at Library , SMSA [Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts]. ACFS is Australia China Friendship Society NSW.
- Topic: Golden Sherds story 2 is the second in a trio of family history publications by ACFS NSW member Marilyn Sue Dooley. Issued in July this year at a family gathering, this story centres on Marilyn’s maternal great grandfather, Mr Ah Yin of Rosewood Diggings (c1844 – 1885), Central Queensland. A figure in the landscape of Cantonese Chinese in Australia during the gold rushes of the nineteenth century, Marilyn’s great grandfather was a storekeeper and publican, married to an Irish woman, and father to seven children. His descendants are now seven generations Australian born with Chinese Heritage. This talk will tell both a family story and explore the research that has been like fossicking for specks of gold; a journey with discoveries as precious as gold but a story, ever incomplete, like the broken sherds that lie scattered on the now long gone landscape of an ancestor’s life and times.
Calendar 2018