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NLA News - home April 2004 Volume XIV Number 7
Images of Australia in Asian Languages

Andrew Gosling uncovers Asian perceptions of Australia contained in the Library’s collections and gives details of a project set up for this purpose

Some of the researchers and National Library staff involved with the Asian Accounts of Australia Project in March 2001. Clockwise: Meredith Box (seated), Wan Wong (NLA), Ching Sun (NLA), Ines Rittgasser, Mayumi Shinozaki (NLA), Steve Bullard, Judy Laffan, Tom Kwok, Moko Eade (NLA), Peter Trebilco (seated)

Some of the researchers and National Library staff
involved with the Asian Accounts of Australia Project
in March 2001.
Clockwise: Meredith Box (seated), Wan Wong (NLA),
Ching Sun (NLA), Ines Rittgasser, Mayumi
Shinozaki (NLA), Steve Bullard, Judy Laffan,
Tom Kwok, Moko Eade (NLA), Peter Trebilco (seated)
Pictures Collection

Australia’s close association with its neighbours requires a good understanding of Asian societies, and particularly their perceptions of Australia. These varied and changing views are reflected in thousands of Asian publications held at the National Library. They include not only historical and contemporary writings by Asians about this country but also a fascinating range of Australian serious and popular works in Asian language translations. Many of the texts are by Asian Australians, and provide an insight into their responses to their new homeland.

The Asian Collections contain some 3000 Australiana monographs in Japanese, 1000 in Chinese and around 200 in other Asian languages. In addition there are many journal and newspaper articles about Australia in these languages.

Under the National Library Act 1960 the Library is required to ‘maintain and develop a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people’. This includes works published overseas in any language where the subject is wholly or substantially Australian. It also includes foreign language books published in Australia, as well as foreign language editions and translations of Australian authors, whether published locally or overseas.

Among those launching the Asian Accounts of Australia Project in March 2000 were Pam Gatenby, Assistant Director-General Collections Management (third from left) with (left to right) Dr Alison Broinowski (Chief Investigator), Professor Mark Finnane (Team Leader), Professor Tony Milner (Team Leader) and Dr Jocelyn Chey

Among those launching the Asian Accounts of
Australia Project in March 2000 were
Pam Gatenby, Assistant Director-General Collections Management (third from left) with (left to right)
Dr Alison Broinowski (Chief Investigator),
Professor Mark Finnane (Team Leader),
Professor Tony Milner (Team Leader)
and Dr Jocelyn Chey
Pictures Collection

The Library seeks to collect Asian language Australiana comprehensively. This presents a number of challenges. It is not always easy to find out what has been published or to obtain items once they have been identified. Asian language titles in publishers’ lists or bibliographies may not clearly indicate that they are, for example, translations of Australian works. Older books and even some quite recent titles may be out of print. Asian language books, magazines and newspapers published in Australia are often produced by small-scale operators unaware of their obligation to provide the National Library with copies under legal deposit. Nevertheless, through the painstaking efforts of specialist language staff in Asian Collections and the co-operation of publishers and book suppliers, the Library has been able to develop considerable strengths, particularly for Chinese and Japanese language Australiana.

The senior Chinese and Japanese librarians Wan Wong and Mayumi Shinozaki, together with their colleagues, are always on the lookout for new Australiana. As Wan points out, there are some quite unusual items held, not just books and serials. She has recently acquired several sound discs on language use, produced in Australia in Cantonese and English, as well as a video compact disc of photographs accompanying a book from China by Wang Chengfa entitled Yi guo cai feng (Glimpse of the Foreign Lands: Australia and New Zealand). From an earlier era the Library holds a scrapbook of press clippings in Chinese from the then Australian prime minister Harold Holt’s visit to Taiwan in 1967. Mayumi has managed to obtain from the author, Shimizu Akira, a complete set of the limited series he published on Japanese migration to Australia and other countries. Only 50 copies were produced.

View of Port Darwin, reproduced from Watanabe Kanjuro’s Goshu tanken hokokusho (Report of the Expedition to Australia) (Tokyo: Gaimusho Tsushokyoku Dai 2-ka, 1894)

View of Port Darwin, reproduced from Watanabe
Kanjuro’s Goshu tanken hokokusho (Report of the
Expedition to Australia) (Tokyo: Gaimusho
Tsushokyoku Dai 2-ka, 1894)

Asian translations of Australiana range from classics to popular literature and non-fiction. For example, several of Patrick White’s novels have been published in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. His autobiography Flaws in the Glass is held in Chinese as Jing zhong xia ci as is David Marr’s Patrick White: A Life under the title Wu bian de man tuo luo: Huaite zhuan. Professor Hu Wenzhong, one of Patrick White’s Chinese translators, and an eminent scholar of Australian studies in China, was awarded a Harold White Fellowship at the National Library in 1993 to carry out research on the Nobel Prize winning novelist. Several of Hu’s translations and books about Australian literature are in the Asian Collections, while the letters he received from Patrick White are in the Manuscripts Collection.

The Library has Nyanyian seorang Aborijin, the Indonesian version of Thomas Keneally’s Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith as well as Chinese and Japanese translations of his Schindler’s Ark. Among other Asian language editions of her works, the Library has obtained Colleen McCullough’s Thorn Birds in Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese. Manning Clark’s Short History of Australia is held in Japanese as Osutoraria no rekishi and Korean as Osutureillia ui yoksa, the latter translated by the Australian scholar, Dr Ch’oe Yang-hi.

Professor Hu Wenzhong (seated), during his Harold White Fellowship at the National Library in 1993. On the left is Cao Boahui, from the National Library of China, and on the right C.P. Tang of the National Library of Australia. Professor Hu is an eminent scholar of Australian Studies and translator of Patrick White into chinese

Professor Hu Wenzhong (seated),
during his Harold White Fellowship at
the National Library in 1993. On the left
is Cao Baohui, from the National Library
of China, and on the right C.P. Tang of
the National Library of Australia.
Professor Hu is an eminent scholar of
Australian studies and translator
of Patrick White into Chinese
Pictures Collection

The National Library’s holdings also reflect the growth in Asian translations of Australian children’s books. Dr Kerry White, who was recently granted a special fellowship at the Library to carry out research for Australian Children’s Books: A Bibliography, has noted that unassuming treasures in Asian Collections include a 1991 Chinese edition of Ruth Park’s adventure novel The Road under the Sea and two Chinese editions of Dot and the Kangaroo from 2000. She has also drawn the Library’s attention to the many Australian children’s titles which have appeared in the last few years in Korean translation. A number have now been acquired.

An unusual Thai language holding, which is in part a translation from Australian texts, is the book Net Khenli (Ned Kelly). The author, Kulap Saipradit, whose pen name was Siburapha, spent a year-and-a-half in Melbourne between 1947 and 1949, studying Australian life and society. He viewed the bushranger sympathetically as a fighter against injustice. The Library also holds Scot Barme’s Kulap in Oz, which provides a fascinating account of the Thai’s stay in Australia, and English translations of some of his writings about this country.

Cover reproduced from Australia petunjuk praktis untuk pengunjung, pelajar dan pengusaha (A Guide Book for Indonesians Visiting Australia), by Bill Gresham (Belconnen, ACT: Indonesia Management Specialists, 2002). Courtesy of Bill Gresham

Cover reproduced from Australia
petunjuk praktis untuk pengunjung,
pelajar dan pengusaha
(A Guide Book for
Indonesians Visiting Australia), by Bill
Gresham (Belconnen, ACT: Indonesia
Management Specialists, 2002)
Courtesy of Bill Gresham

Chinese Australians whose works are in the collection include Ouyang Yu, who as well as being a prolific poet has translated David Malouf, Tim Winton and Germaine Greer into Chinese. The Library also holds works in Chinese and English by the writer and bibliophile Sang Ye, who moved to Australia in 1989. The following year, the Library acquired from Sang Ye a substantial collection of Chinese language books, pamphlets and newspapers about contemporary China.

Several of the works held are bilingual. An interesting example is Hua sheng ji (Chinese Voice) by Huy Huynh, who is originally from Cambodia. This is a collection of editorials from a major Australian newspaper published in Chinese, Hua sheng ri bao or The Chinese Herald. English translations are included for each of the editorials.

While the National Library holds comparatively little in Chinese about Australia published before the 1950s, the Japanese collection is quite strong in older Australiana. There are more than 40 titles published between 1881 and 1944. The earliest is Asami Tadao’s Goshu kiko dai 2 kai (Record of My Second Trip to Australia). Although undated, it appears to be from 1881. This is a 15-page outline of conditions in late nineteenth century Australia. It is possible Asami accompanied one of the early Japanese delegations to the international expositions held in Sydney in 1879 and Melbourne in 1880. Copies made in 1990 of original Japanese reports on these two expositions are also in the collection. They were kindly provided by the National Diet Library in Tokyo.

Page reproduced from Nichi-Go-Shin shinzen go, Japan-Australia-New Zealand friendship edition (Osaka: Osaka Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1936)

Page reproduced from Nichi-Go-Shin
shinzen go
, Japan-Australia-New Zealand
friendship edition (Osaka: Osaka
Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1936)

Several titles date from the early 1940s when Australia and Japan were at war. They range from Izumi Shinsuke’s Goshu shi (A History of Australia), which is free from wartime ideology, to Goshu no shizen to shakai (Natural Resources and Society in Australia), which is full of rhetoric about the need to include Australia in an expanding Japanese empire.

Much of the contemporary Asian Australiana is in a lighter vein. Popular works include Wu Li’s anecdotes in Chinese about being a nanny in Australia, Wo yu wu ge Yingguo xiao gui lao (Five British Little Devils and I). Among the glossy periodicals for Japanese visitors are titles such as BBQ, Splash, Koala Press and Meatpie. The Japanese collection is also rich in pictorial works about Australian flora and fauna.

The Library has recently been involved in a three-year project entitled ‘Asian Accounts of Australia’ that was designed to make these holdings more accessible. The original idea for this project came from the scholar and writer Dr Alison Broinowski. Over many years Alison has made extensive use of the Library’s Asian Australiana in her writings on Asian perceptions of this country. She was keen for other researchers to become more aware of this rich resource in Asian Collections.

The project involved The Australian National University, Griffith University and the Library, and was funded by the Australian Research Council and the National Library. It followed a pilot project with the Australian National University and Griffith University supported by a Griffith University research grant. The pilot stage had refined the scope of research to concentrate on selected Chinese and Japanese language monographs and serials reflecting Asian perceptions of Australia. The project’s academic team leaders were Professor Tony Milner, Dean of Asian Studies at the Australian National University and Professor Mark Finnane, School of Humanities, Griffith University. The chief investigators were Dr Alison Broinowski and Dr Shun Ikeda, both of the Australian National University.

Eight annotated bibliographies of Chinese and Japanese Australiana have been prepared by the project’s research associates. This involved detailed advice and assistance from staff in Asian Collections, led by Marie Sexton and Andrew Gosling, with Wan Wong and Mayumi Shinozaki heading the Chinese and Japanese units. The researchers concentrated on monographs, periodical and newspaper articles dealing with selected Australian topics. These ranged from Australia as a place of settlement, to the Sydney Olympics; through culture, politics and tourism to Indigenous Australia, an Australian republic and the One Nation political party. The oldest book was Asami’s Record of My Second Trip to Australia from 1881, mentioned above. The most recent publications listed from 2001 included Hijikata Masashi’s Kentaurosu hashiru! Kurumaisu resa tachi no Shidoni Pararinpikku (Running Centaurs! The Wheelchair Racers of the Sydney Paralympics).

The bibliographies with their synopses provide greatly enhanced access to these books, journal and newspaper articles beyond the information available in the catalogue. They are now available nationally and internationally from the National Library’s website at www.nla.gov.au/asian/accounts/. This should certainly widen exposure of the Asian Collections to readers and researchers who may well be unaware of the National Library’s strengths in this area.

In conjunction with the Asian Accounts of Australia Project, the Library has issued a Catalogue of the Australiana Collection in the Chinese Language. This lists relevant monographs, periodicals, newspapers, maps and electronic materials. These are in three categories: works about Australia, works by Australian authors in Chinese and translations of Australian authors. Unlike the more focussed Asian Accounts bibliographies, the catalogue covers all types of Chinese language Australiana. Copies of this listing are available free of charge from Asian Collections.

Cover reproduced from Aozhou jie chu hua ren lu (Notable Chinese Australians), (Haymarket, N.S.W.: Zhongguo cheng chu ban gong si, 2003) Courtesy of Teresa Cheng, Chinatown Promotions & Public Relations Pty Ltd

Cover reproduced from Aozhou
jie chu hua ren lu
(Notable
Chinese Australians),
(Haymarket, N.S.W.: Zhongguo
cheng chu ban gong si, 2003)
Courtesy of Teresa Cheng, Chinatown Promotions & Public Relations Pty Ltd

The project’s final conference, ‘As Others See Us’, held at the National Library in February 2003, attracted considerable attention and was well attended. Conference speakers were drawn from the project team, and included a number of Australia’s leading authorities on East Asian and Australian studies. The importance of the conference was reflected in the involvement of Mr Kevin Rudd MP, Opposition Spokesman for Foreign Affairs who gave the opening address and Mr Greg Hunt MP who provided the closing address, representing the Hon. Alexander Downer MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Following this final conference, there are plans to publish the proceedings and a book of translated readings from the Library’s Chinese and Japanese Australiana.

For resource reasons, the project was only able to look at a selection of Chinese and Japanese Australiana. Any future work could examine further items in these languages, including titles acquired since the bibliographies were compiled and topics beyond those originally included. In particular, the project was only able to examine a limited number of Chinese and Japanese periodical and newspaper articles relating to Australia from among the Library’s extensive holdings. Australiana in other Asian languages, though more limited than for Chinese and Japanese, could also be included. Beyond this, there are the printed holdings in English relating to Asian perceptions, and original materials such as the Library’s extensive oral history recordings on the Chinese in Australia. Wider research could also include other cultural and research bodies with relevant collections.

The National Library’s Directions Statement emphasises that ‘Our major undertaking in 2003–2005 will be to provide rapid and easy access to the wealth of information resources that reside in libraries and other cultural institutions and to break down barriers that work against this’. The Asian Accounts of Australia Project is an excellent example of the Library collaborating with the scholarly community to help break down language and other barriers and make important Asian collections about Australia better known and more accessible.

ANDREW GOSLING was Chief Librarian, Asian Collections from 1985 to 2003. He has written extensively on Asian collections and services in Australia

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