MUSEUM OF SYDNEY 29 MARCH – 12 OCTOBER …...MUSEUM OF SYDNEY 29 MARCH – 12 OCTOBER 2014 Stage 3 Education Program Post-visit activities PRESENTED BY A NOTE TO TEACHERS These post-visit

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TEACHER NOTES POST-SESSION

MUSEUM OF SYDNEY 29 MARCH – 12 OCTOBER 2014

Stage 3 Education Program Post-visit activities

PRESENTED BY

A NOTE TO TEACHERSThese post-visit activities, intended for Stage 3 teachers in NSW, are designed to further enrich the learning experience of students who have visited the exhibition Celestial City: Sydney’s Chinese Story at the Museum of Sydney and taken part in the guided tour. The guided tour was tailored to meet the syllabus requirements of the current Stage 3 HSIE course and the NSW Board of Studies History Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum.

These activities address the requirements of a number of Stage 3 subjects and learning areas, but individual schools will need to adapt the activities to their own needs to fulfil the requirements of their own programs.

Thank you again for sharing this exhibition with your students. We look forward to welcoming you and your students again to any of the 12 museums, properties and gardens managed by Sydney Living Museums.

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ACTIVITY 1

READING AN ARTWORK AS A SOURCE: THE AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE AND THE CROSS-CULTURAL OR ‘BLENDED’ IDENTITY

Counterpoint, Shen Jiawei, 1995. Collection of the artist. Reproduced with permission

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ETYMOLOGY: ‘COUNTERPOINT’The English language, including the meaning and usage of words, has continued to change over its history, ‘Etymology’ is the study of the origin and history of words. The word ‘counterpoint’, which artist Shen Jiawei has titled his painting, came to this language from medieval Latin and appears to have first been used in late Middle English. Middle English was spoken in England between the late 12th and early 15th centuries.

The word ‘counterpoint’ has its origins in the Latin word contrapunctum: • ‘contra’ meaning ‘against’ • ‘punctum’ meaning ‘to prick or poke a hole in something’.

‘Counterpoint’ in music was a feature of the baroque period, which roughly spanned the years 1600 to 1750. It describes the music of Bach, for instance, in which several different melodies are played simultaneously to create wonderful harmonies. It was known as ‘counterpoint’ because, from the mid-1400s, composers and musicians would use the point of a pen to prick holes in the manuscript of an existing piece of music to lay out a new melody on top of the original. The new melody would then be played simultaneously with the old, so that the two melodies intertwined, contrasting and enhancing each other, and creating harmony.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ‘COUNTERPOINT’ AS THE TITLE OF THE PAINTING‘Counterpoint’ is used here as an abstract noun to describe what is achieved when two contrasting elements are placed together with the intention to highlight their differences. The effect of counterpoint can be to provoke thought and inquiry. It may also be pleasing.

The title Counterpoint invites us to note the cultural contrasts in the painting. During their visit to the exhibition, students were able to reflect on how, throughout his life, Quong Tart embraced aspects of both Chinese and Australian culture, to the point where he was described in the media, beneath a sketched portrait (displayed in the exhibition), as a ‘choice blend’.

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‘READING’ COUNTERPOINT BY SHEN JIAWEIHistorians read sources looking for evidence and clues that help us to understand both the distant and recent past.

During their visit to the Celestial City exhibition at the Museum of Sydney, students had the opportunity to explore how Chinese immigrants to Australia, such as Quong Tart, became integrated into our society.

Shen Jiawei’s oil painting Counterpoint could be regarded as a contemporary source for historians. It is a double portrait depicting friends of the artist’s who share Chinese ancestry and live in Sydney. Bend Tat (Ted) Ee was born in Malaysia and his wife Denise was raised in Sydney and, while their relationship might be interpreted as harmonious, the painting reveals how their personalities and cultural backgrounds are very different.

Encourage students to consider the contrasting direction of the gazes of the two individuals and how this might reflect their differing personalities. How might their different body language and stance suggest differences in their personalities? Ask students to use precise adjectives to describe the body language and stance of each individual in the portrait.

This painting, which was a finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize in 1996, can be interpreted as revealing that the process by which migrants integrate or assimilate into new cultures is ongoing in Australian history and society.

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QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION•What do we mean by the terms ‘blended identity’ or ‘cross-cultural identity’?

• In our visit to the exhibition Celestial City we saw how Quong Tart’s identity was a ‘blend’ of both Australian and Chinese characteristics. In what ways did Quong Tart integrate into Australian society and achieve a ‘blended identity’?

Ask students to list some of the ways in which Quong Tart integrated into 19th-century Australian culture. (Students might recall his hair cut, Scottish accent, Western clothing, love of cricket, or his marriage to Margaret Scarlett, an Australian woman of European descent.)

Ask students to recall how Quong Tart retained his connections to his Chinese heritage and identity (mandarin of the 5th order, interpreter of spoken and written texts, tea merchant importing tea from China, owner of Chinese-style tea houses, visitor to his birthplace, China).

•How does Shen Jiawei’s artwork Counterpoint represent/communicate the idea of a blended identity?

•Which objects and features of the painting are used to symbolise the cross-cultural identity or blended identity of the couple, as interpreted by Shen Jiawei?

Students might move into groups to organise their ideas into a table:

CHINESE CULTURAL HERITAGE AND IDENTITY

EUROPEAN AND AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL HERITAGE AND

IDENTITY

scrolls in porcelain jar

red ochre dust on floor

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QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION – continued•What other objects or symbols could Shen Jiawei have included in his painting

to symbolise his friends’ cross-cultural identity as Chinese Australians?

Ask students to list these objects. They might organise these in a table.

OBJECTS TO SYMBOLISE CHINESE IDENTITY

AND HERITAGE

OBJECTS TO SYMBOLISE AUSTRALIAN IDENTITY

•Why might Shen Jiawei have chosen to include the red ochre dust covering the floor in the left-hand corner of the painting? What might this symbolise?

•Why might he have decided to include checked tiles on the floor in the right-hand side of the painting? Where else might you see a checked pattern like this? (Students might suggest a chess board or the game of Chinese checkers.)

•What sorts of paintings are seen in the background of Counterpoint? How might these reveal aspects of blended identity? The small portraits on the far left and far right of the wall behind are by the celebrated German painter Hans Holbein, who lived and worked in England as a migrant for short periods.

Look also at the Chinese landscape painting in the centre of the wall. Its size and placement at the centre of the image are significant. The genre of Chinese landscape painting rarely just represents the natural world in a realistic manner. Such landscape paintings are considered to be expressions of the minds and hearts of their owners. What might this painting symbolise? What might it reveal about its owners?

•Bend Tat Ee is holding a traditional Yixing clay teapot in his hands. Why do you think the artist included this object in the painting?

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WHO IS SHEN JIAWEI?Shen Jiawei is one of Australia’s leading portrait painters. Born in Shanghai in 1948, he became a renowned painter in his native China, and his portraits and propaganda and history paintings were displayed in galleries around the world. In 1989, with $45 in his pocket, Shen Jiawei came to Australia to study English. While he was here the Tiananmen Square protest took place in China and he realised he could not go back to his homeland, so he stayed in Australia, supporting himself at first by making portrait sketches for tourists who were visiting Darling Harbour. Most of those tourists would have no idea they have a souvenir created by a world-famous artist!

Now Shen Jiawei lives in Bundeena in New South Wales with his wife and daughter. His wife, Lan Wang, is also a noted painter and sculptor.

Shen Jiawei has, 13 times, been a finalist in the Archibald Prize, Australia’s most famous portrait-painting competition. Each year artists are invited to submit portraits ‘of some man or woman distinguished in art, letter, science or politics’.

In 2010 he submitted a self-portrait in which he depicted himself as a contemporary of Quong Tart, whose story was presented in the exhibition. Click on the link below to view an image of this portrait on the Art Gallery of New South Wales website: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2011/28934/

The art critic John McDonald commented that, in this self-portrait, Shen Jiawei plays with his dual or blended identity as both a Chinese immigrant and an Australian citizen. He paints himself working on his portrait of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, which is today in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. The portrait of the princess is remarkable given that she had only three hours available for a sitting. You can click on the link below to view this painting: http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/collection_info.php?searchtype=basic&searchstring=Crown%20princess%20Mary%20of%20Denmark&irn=1091&acno=2005.96&onshow=no

To watch a short online video of the artist talking about this portrait of Crown Princess Mary, click on this link: http://www.portrait.gov.au/site/Princess_Mary_Jiawei_Shen.php

Shen Jiawei has also received commissions to paint the portraits of other notable Australians, including of former Prime Minister John Howard. On 16 April 2005, The Weekend Australian claimed that he was Number 1 out of ten Chinese Australians who have made significant contributions to the cultural, academic and business life of Australia.

Shen Jiawei. Photograph James Murray © Sydney Living Museums

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ACTIVITY 2

INNOVATION AND CONTRIBUTION: FROM GOLD TO MARKET GARDENS AND BEYONDThe immigration of Chinese people to Australia, which began in the 19th century, has clearly benefited Australian society. Chinese Australians have contributed many innovations, or new ways of doing something.

During the gold rushes in New South Wales in the 1800s, mine shafts allowed miners access to alluvial gold below the ground. The Chinese miners built round mine shafts, less likely to collapse than the square holes dug by European miners. Some sources suggest that the Chinese regarded the round

shaft as a lucky design, believing that a circular shaft could not shelter the ghosts and evil spirits that might inhabit the corners of square mine shafts. A small number of European miners copied the Chinese design.

As the goldfields became exhausted, the Chinese immigrants moved to the towns and cities, where their skills as market gardeners also made an important contribution to Australian society. It is estimated that, from 1870 onward, three-quarters of all fruit and vegetables eaten in Australia were grown by Chinese market gardeners. This brought important health benefits for the colonies and transformed the ways people ate. According to historian Eric Rolls in the documentary Flowers and the wide sea, 1994, the contribution of Chinese market gardeners ‘reduced vegetables from an expensive luxury, often exotic, to being a cheap and universal [eaten by everyone] article of diet’. Today people from all cultures in Australia regularly eat fruit and vegetables that were initially introduced by Asian immigrants for their own use.

SCARECROW RIDDLESWhy did the scarecrow win the Nobel Prize? Because he was ‘out standing’ in his field!

What is a scarecrow’s favourite fruit? ‘Straw’ berries!

Find lots more jokes at the links below:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1768/#b

http://halloweenjokes.com/halloween-jokes/scarecrow-jokes

‘Chinese Scare-crow’, Australian Town and Country Journal, 12 October 1878, p20. State Library of New South Wales

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In the forecourt of the Museum of Sydney students will have seen the contemporary market garden established for the run of the Celestial City exhibition. In this garden we feature plants likely to have been grown by Chinese people in the 19th century for their own use. Among them are garlic chives, white radish, coriander, basil, rocket, English spinach, gai lan, choy sum, en choy and shanghai. There are also medicinal plants, such as ginseng and burdock. Burdock can be used to treat skin disease and arthritis.

Photographs Kate Ford © Sydney Living Museums

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GLOSSARYextremity the far end of something. To make the Chinese scare-crow you need to attach rope or cord to the top end (extremity) of the bamboo pole.

cuttle-fish this refers to the chalky internal bone of the cuttlefish (see below), a sea creature related to the squid and octopus. The cuttlefish bone is very light so moves easily in the wind when attached to the end of the rope tied to the bamboo pole. With the movement of the cuttlefish bone, the piece of slate tied higher up the rope strikes the side of the glass bottle and makes a noise to scare away the birds.

slate a type of rock easily drilled or split into smooth flat pieces, making it ideal for roofing. When tapped against glass, it makes a loud noise.

apparatus a tool or piece of equipment used for a specific purpose, ie a scarecrow is a tool or ‘apparatus’ used to scare away birds from crops

singular remarkable, special, striking, unusual. The noise the Chinese scarecrow makes is described as ‘singular’, meaning that it was unusual and therefore alarmed the birds.

Bone of the cuttlefish, to be used in the construction of a Chinese scare-crow. Photograph Wikipedia Commons

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DESIGN TASK: MAKE YOUR OWN SCARECROW Have students design their own prototype of a device to scare birds away from crops grown in a market garden. (A ‘prototype’ is the first design or model of a new invention or product.)

To come up with their design, students should consider using different senses – eg, sight, hearing and, yes, even smell – to alarm the birds.

Their design should include:

•a sketch of the scarecrow, with all parts labelled

•a short written explanation of how the scarecrow works (or a spoken explanation of their design).

Before you begin: researching scarecrows across time and cultures

Scarecrows have been used for thousands of years in a range of cultures to frighten away birds from crops.

In Ancient Greek mythology, Priapus, the son of the gods Venus and Aphrodite, was apparently so ugly that he scared the birds away from grapes growing in vineyards. Farmers in Ancient Greece made wooden statues of Priapus holding a spear, and painted them purple.

In medieval Britain, being a scarecrow could even be a full-time job! Boys aged nine and over were employed as ‘bird scarers’ or ‘bird shooers’ to throw stones at the birds that landed on fields. They also used noise makers and rattles to frighten away birds, a practice that continued until the late 19th century.

There have been ongoing innovations in scarecrow design. At South West Florida Airport a two-year-old border collie named Jet was the first dog trained to chase away birds from runways. This was to prevent birds being struck by planes and causing accidents.

Jet learnt to herd birds away from specific areas of the airport rather than just chasing and scattering them. In 2001 Jet retired and was replaced by a dog named Radar.

http://www.netpets.org/dogs/reference/info/collieherds.html

http://www.vagabondish.com/radar-the-inspector-dog-canine-joins-staff-at-florida-airport/

Students could do some research to find out about:

• the yucca lines of the Zuni people of the south-western United States of America

•a Japanese scarecrow known as a ‘kakashi’ (very smelly!)

•the use of kites and balloons

•contemporary bird scarers.

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Sources

The sources below are a starting point for students’ own investigation:

http://www.cheekwood.org/media/Scarecrows!.pdf

http://home.comcast.net/~minelson/history_of_scarecrows.htm

http://historybecauseitshere.weebly.com/scarecrows-historically-speaking.html

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1768/#b

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-history-of-scarecrows-for-families

http://www.librarypoint.org/celebration_of_scarecrows

Procedural text

Ask students to compose a set of instructions for building and using the scarecrow they have designed.

School garden program

If your school has its own garden program, have the students decide which of their scarecrow designs is the most practical and effective, and perhaps build this model to install in your own school garden.

Persuasive text

Students could compose a persuasive text to convince the class that their scarecrow design should be the one chosen.

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ACTIVITY 3

CHINESE IMMIGRATION, THE WHITE AUSTRALIA POLICY AND THE DICTATION TESTFrom 1901 to 1958 a dictation test was given to all prospective immigrants by Customs officials. It was designed to exclude non-whites, and others considered ‘undesirable’, who wanted to emigrate in Australia. The Customs official would read out a 50-word passage in any language, even a language unknown to the applicant, and the would-be immigrant would have to write it down accurately word for word. If they failed the test, they would be turned away.

Click on the link below and try your hand at completing actual examples of the test that were used in the 1920s and 30s. There are many examples to choose from, so have a go at more than just the first one. You’ll find more by clicking on ‘Take another test’ below.

http://tenpoundpom.com/dictation.php

ACTIVITY 4

LANGUAGE GAME FOLLOW-UPDuring their tour of the Celestial City exhibition, students had the opportunity to play a language game. This enabled them to understand the challenge immigrants face when they arrive in a new country and do not speak the predominant spoken language.

Another of the contributions Chinese immigrants have made to Australian culture has been the addition of new words to the English language, eg the word ‘lemon’ has its origin in the Cantonese phrase ‘ling mung’.

Students could research ‘calques’ (from the French word meaning ‘to copy’), which are phrases and expressions that have been directly translated from one language to another. An example of a calque that is said to have come to English from Cantonese is the expression ‘long time no see’.

Students might also research words that have come into Australian English from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. How do we use these words in Australia today?