Dragon Tails Conferences

In 2011 the Chinese Museum, in partnership with La Trobe University, hosted Dragon Tails 2011: Sources, Language, Approaches: 2nd Australasian conference on overseas Chinese history & heritage. Two publications have been produced that draw on the papers presented at this conference, edited by former Chinese Museum Curator, Dr Sophie Couchman, and Dr Kate Bagnall.
• ‘Sources, language and approaches in Chinese Australian history’, special issue of Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, vol. 6, 2013
• ‘Chinese Australians: Politics, Engagement, Activism’, special issue of Journal of Overseas Chinese, vol.9, no.2, 2013

Dragon Tails Conferences run every two years and is hosted by different organizations and held at different locations in Australia and New Zealand. These conferences bring together a multidisciplinary group of scholars from across Australia and internationally to discuss the history and heritage of Chinese in Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

To view the conference program of Dragon Tails 2011, please click on this link: Dragon Tails 2011: Sources. language. approaches.

Latest

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The museum is to embark on a major study and research, The Chinese Melbourne Project, over the next two years that will bring to light the community beyond the shopkeepers of Chinatown, to link them to their families and where they lived in the inner suburbs of Melbourne.
Stories of Chinese Anzacs and Chinese Australian WWII Soldiers

The museum continues to collect photographs, memorabilia, stories, and information about Chinese-Australian soldiers.
Saving Australia’s Early Chinese Memories, 2010-2013

Ten Chinese Australians were recorded during an interview that asked them to recall life in Australia during the White Australia period, prior to the more recent waves of immigration from the 1970s. We are lucky to have these stories, as those who can remember this period in Australia’s history are becoming fewer with every year.
Language, A Key to Survival: Cantonese-English Phrasebooks in Australia, 2012-2013

Through a gold-rush era Cantonese-English phrasebook held by the Chinese Museum, this project explored the significance of language for Chinese immigrants as they built lives in a new country.

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