Find more Stories Embracing those golden moments of understanding

Sitting in a pub just outside of the Rock district, a couple of nights back, I got to thinking about Australia Day.

You see, earlier that day I’d spread the papers about the living room of my in-law’s home and noticed quite a few pieces addressing the meaning and symbolism of the holiday. Responses seemed to be divided into two camps – self-congratulatory barbeque-themed odes to the sun-bleached lifestyle and hand-wringing, chest-thumping missives condemning the holiday as a racist revel and a bogan bacchanal.

Sipping a really rather tasty red ale, I pondered these two contradictory notions of what it means to celebrate Australia Day. In an effort to understand it all, I cast my mind back over years of readings of Australian history, of stories dug out from the pages of yellowed letters and archive boxes back when I got paid to study history for a living.

I think I came to a conclusion. Hear me out.

Australian history, it must be said, is one long succession of stuff-ups, atrocities, mad ideas and plunderings. It’s quite often a tragic tale, told in blazing sunshine, all mad from thirst and hunger. It’s hard. It’s flinty. Anger and fear loom large and drive the story onwards.

However, there are many tales of staggering beauty, of kindness, of understanding and of peace. There’s a striking number of moments when the clouds roll back and for a moment, it’s golden.

They’re unlikely moments. They’re moments that bloom, despite the odds. They’re moments that could only happen here, in Australia, in a place where wave after wave of people have washed up to make a new start.

They’re moments when Australians put the bullshit aside and come together in an attempt to understand.

Take the story of William Dawes and Patyegarang.

William Dawes was a Royal Marine, who at age 26 landed in the Sydney area with the First Fleet. A bookish, rather reserved fellow – we’d probably call him a bit of a nerd – Dawes had shown himself to be a fairly dab hand at charting the stars. as a consequence, he was dispatched to the point that now bears his name in order to chart the expected arrival of a comet.

Dawes built a hut where the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge stands today and there, while he waited for the arrival of the comet in the southern skies, he struck up a friendship with many of the local Cadigal people.

One of those of whom he met at that time was a 15-year-old girl, Patyegarang.

What we know of Dawes and Patyegarang – or Patye, as he called her – come from a collection of notebooks that he took with him when he left the colony. In those notebooks, he made the first real study of Indigenous languages. Patye was his guide and his teacher.

Through the notebooks, we see Dawes pick up the local names for many examples of local flora and fauna, and the customs of the Cadigal.

Bógul – The mouse.

Tam-mun – The fig tree.

Goo-me-dah – The name given to dead bodies, or spirits.

However, through Dawes’ notebook and diary entries, we also get a sense that his relationship with Patye became a lot more intimate.

Putuwá – To warm ones hand by the fire and then to squeeze gently the fingers of another person.

At this time Patyegarang was standing by the fire naked and I desired her to put on her cloaths (sic), on which she said Goredya taragin, the full meaning of which is ‘I will or do remain longer naked in order to get warm sooner, as the fire is felt better without cloaths than if it had to penetrate thro (sic) them.

While it may seem shocking today that a 26-year-old man would allow himself to become quite so intimate with a 15-year-old girl, there’s something that sets aside Dawes and Patyegarang’s relationship – in my eyes, it’s the real desire to learn and to understand that both express throughout course of Dawe’s recollections. Rather than just some sort of carnal bond, what brought them together, more than anything else, was the desire to understand, to think things through, to gain a picture of each other’s worlds.

Of course it couldn’t last. Dawes was dismissed from the colony in disgrace after he refused to participate in a hunt for some Cadigal men who had killed the colony’s gamekeeper. He would serve  in Sierra Leone, fighting against slavery before dying in England in 1836.

As for Patyegarang – well, history doesn’t record what happened to her, but it is assumed she either succumbed to one of the diseases introduced by the colony or fled inland to live out the rest of her days.

Yes, it was only a fleeting relationship. Yet it was one of those golden moments, a moment in time that demonstrated how the two worlds – settler and local – could enter a place of understanding.

One should also consider Mei Quong Tart, the merchant.

Quong arrived on that tidal wave of migrants that came to Australia following the discovery of gold in the 1850s. Living with a merchant, he was eventually adopted by a local family, who encouraged him, along with his family back in China, to start purchasing gold leases.

Come early adulthood and Quong was rich. Not only was he rich, but he was well-liked, a pillar of his local community and a naturalised citizen of the colony. Quong knew that he was in a place of tremendous opportunity and did everything he could to take advantage of what his new home provided.

In 1881 he opened a store selling tea and silk. Over the years he would purchase more properties and restaurants throughout Sydney and forge himself a business empire, the rival of many of the large business interests that existed at the time. He wore the finest clothes, lived in a well-appointed home, married an English woman and had four children.

He did everything he could to show that he was a new South Welshman. He moved through society acting as a benefactor to many charitable organisations. He hosted a number of regular dinners for the destitute. Workers in his restaurants were given sick leave, something pretty rare at the time.

Yet, he never forgot where he came from. Quong was known for his crusades against the opium that was killing his countrymen on the goldfields, as well as anti-Chinese violence. He circulated petitions and accompanied the police on their visits to the goldfields to act as interpreter and guide. He demonstrated a community spirit and altruistic bent that seldom few could match today.

It’s also worth considering that Quong achieved all of this in that 50 or so years of the 19th century where anti-Chinese rhetoric and zealotry was approaching its zenith in the colonies. He made his fortune in the years after Lambing Flat and he died shortly after the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act.

Quong died just after the turn of the century. his home was burgled and he never really managed to recover, yet his funeral attracted vast crowds, including the absolute cream of Sydney society.

Yes, the years after his passing would usher in the White Australia Policy and in the century since his death we’ve seen some dark times for race relations in Australia. Yet, in making the most of his new home, Quong demonstrated a drive to understand, to take the two worlds in which he lived and make them one, to everyone’s benefit.

For a brief moment, he demonstrated that it could be done.

This week, I think it’s a good idea to ponder the fact that we’re a nation made up of from those from all over the world who saw the opportunity to make a go of it in a peaceful, stable place free from tyranny and violence. I believe it’s necessary to consider the fact that each and every one of us come from a different physical, mental, spiritual, sexual and political place.

It’s then vital to understand that we’re extremely blessed that we’ve been given a place where we might just be able to make it all work, if we put our differences aside.

Understanding. That’s what we should be celebrating on Australia Day.

Mike Stuchbery is a high school English and Civics teacher, writer and occasional broadcaster living in Melbourne’s western suburbs. View his full profile here.

Embracing those golden moments of understanding – The Drum Opinion -
We’re extremely blessed that we’ve been given a place where we might just be able to make it all work, if we put our differences aside. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)