Saturday, February 4, 2012

Tracking the Dragon

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people have arrived in Australia since the early nineteenth century and have made it their home. Where did they live, work and worship? Where are the places they cared about?

We know some of these places – temples, Chinese burial areas as well as some shops, market gardens and gold diggings from the past. Much remains unknown.

The Australian Heritage Commission is working to rectify this gap in our knowledge of migrant-related heritage places. It has been developing ways to assist migrant groups and the wider community to identify heritage places important to them. In 1999 it produced a 'how to' guide which has helped communities find and assess their migrant heritage places – the Migrant Heritage Places kit.

We have taken this a further step with the development of this guide and its sister 'toolkit' for heritage practitioners. The toolkit includes a bibliography of Chinese Australian references and a database of heritage sites.

These resources provide both communities and those working in the heritage field with ways of finding out more about the heritage places of a particular migrant group – Chinese Australians.

These new resources will make it easier than ever before to search, find and assess the undiscovered stories and places of our rich Chinese Australian inheritance. Their use will help to build a wider appreciation of this heritage among all Australians.

http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/ahc/publications/commission/books/tracking-the-dragon.html


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