During the early gold rush period,
Chinese arrivals consisted of predominantly male miners.
Not many Chinese women were in Australia at the time.
As a result,
it was tough for Chinese men to find Chinese wives.
Some of these men married Indigenous
or Irish women,
and others resorted to arranged marriages
with Chinese women from overseas.
Mary Tong Way was one such bride.
Dressed in western attire,
she travelled on a passenger ship
all the way from Hong Kong to Australia in 1893
to marry a man she'd never met.
Yes, it was terrifying.
Upon arrival,
Mary became one of the few Chinese women
living in Ballarat.
The arrival caused quite a stir
in the local community
as it was so rare to see Chinese women in Ballarat
at the time.
So the Sovereign Hill Museums Association
does have this special portrait of Mary Tong Way.
It is not an original,
it is a copy that has been kindly donated to us
by family members of Mary Tong Way.
Through this portrait, we are able to share
the story of Mary Tong Way and her family,
but also tell the story of the contributions
of the Chinese community in Ballarat
from the late 19th century through to today.
What was life like for her back in that time in Ballarat?
So Mary migrated out to Ballarat in the early 1890s
as part of an arranged marriage
with Reverend John Tong Way,
who was a local Presbyterian missionary
John and Mary went on to have
somewhere between 11 and 13 children.
3 to 4 of those children survived into adulthood.
Yeah, life was hard
for the Chinese community back in that time
when White Australia policy was imposed.
Absolutely. So Mary would have seen that played out.
And was Mary an active member in the community?
She absolutely was.
And we have a really special item in our collection,
like this very special certificate
that was awarded to Mary Tong Way in 1901.
She submitted her needlework
as part of the Australian Industrial Exhibition
and these exhibitions took place around Australia
in different cities and regional towns
and was all about celebrating
Australian industry workmanship
and craftsmanship.
And this is where Mary Tong Way represented
her family, represented Ballarat.
So through that we see that
she was quite a creative person
and that she was involved in the Ballarat community.
Unlike the arranged marriage of Mary,
Eunice Leong’s love story was on her own terms.
As she turned 100,
Eunice celebrated her platinum wedding anniversary
with her husband, Maurice Leong.
Are all of these accessories used for Eunice’s wedding?
The style seems very western.
Uh yes, these accessories are quite common in Western weddings.
Its Chinese name is ma-ti-tie.
The English name is horseshoes.
Horseshoes symbolise
good luck for the bride
and good life in the future.
This grand wedding ceremony took place in 1950
at Melbourne CBD’s Wesley Church.
It was a typical Western wedding
with more than 100 guests turning up in suit and tie.
During the Second World War,
the couple was separated.
Eunice worked in Darwin
as one of the 15 Chinese Australian female soldiers
from Victoria,
while Maurice worked at the front line
in Hong Kong in the anti-Japanese War.
It wasn't until the end of the war
that the two reunited
and finally started their married life.
Anthony, can you please tell us,
how did your parents meet each other
at the beginning?
Well, it's a long story,
but I suppose it's because of the war
and that both families,
the Chins and the Leongs, knew each other.
And so therefore,
All of the children knew each other as well.
There was shared interest in China
and what was going on in China
against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War,
and because they had things in common
that they worked towards.
It's not uncommon for couples to meet each other
in the past through arranged marriage.
But their story is not like that, right?
Not at all.
The fact is that the war intervened and as such,
virtually all of the customs were thrown out the window
because there was no time for anything like that.
Basically, they had a country to save,
and therefore, as a diaspora,
they banded together to do just that.
What's their secret to a long lasting, happy marriage?
I think complementing each other
in terms of skills, 116
and wanting to make a difference,
wanting to make the world a better place.
And that's the way that they have been
for the past 70 odd years.