The past in a different country: Australian expats share memories of living in China

Updated November 06, 2013 22:25:41

To mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the first ABC bureau in China, two long-term Australian expats share their memories of their early days in the country.

Shelley Warner first came to Peking in January 1973 as a junior diplomat in the first Australian embassy to China, and her husband Tony Voutas arrived in 1974.

Shelley returned to the country as a senior diplomat in 1986, and the couple have lived in China since 1991 running a consulting business.

Shelley Warner: Frustrated observer in a muted city

Peking in 1973 was a city of muted shades - in November a clear blue sky, the soft greys of the hutongs, and the gentle rays of a weak winter sun produced a special clear winter light.  

The first China correspondent

Paul Raffaele recalls his time as the first Australian journalist to be based in Mao's China, where he reported for the ABC.

The omnipresent blue and khaki clothing, with few touches of colour, added to the feeling of quiet.

Very young children were the exception to these shades of blue, grey and khaki, dressed in bright red jackets with matching red cheeks. An opportunity to express a difference, break the monotony.

While political pressures remained, the worst excesses of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution had abated.

Nevertheless, we often saw people on the streets with empty expressionless eyes, men so thin that their belts wrapped twice around their waists; big character posters denouncing officials, high and low, plastered the walls; and loudspeakers on every lamp post proclaimed the latest political campaign.  

We were insulated from most of this - frustrated observers trying to fathom what was happening.

Bicycles overflowed the broad Peking streets, weaving their way past stolid plodding trolley buses, donkey-drawn and sometimes man-drawn carts, and the very occasional Russian or Polish car.

Official foreign delegations increased in number and frequency as China opened its doors wider to the "outside world" and more foreign governments negotiated diplomatic recognition of The People's Republic of China.

The foreign delegations travelled in convoys of large China-made Red Flag limousines.

These delegations raced down The Boulevard of Eternal Peace, preceded some minutes earlier by a smaller car with a fog horn instructing all traffic to move to the side of the road and stop, and for the populace to come and cheer and welcome the "foreign guests".

Travel by foreigners between cities was restricted, as was travel beyond the city's perimeters.

The Great Wall at Badaling was "open", as were several of the Thirteen Ming Tombs, where we would spend many a lazy summer Sunday on long picnics, with local ham, imported cheeses and many glasses of Australian wine.

The Summer Palace was also "open": beautiful pavilions, arched bridges, the infamous Marble Boat and the long external wooden corridors, their romantic traditional scenes of life in the courts roughly white-washed over in deference to the political pressures of the time.

Travel outside Peking, even to Shanghai, was not possible without a travel permit, and approvals were by no means certain.

Shanghai had an independent and rebellious nature and there were times when it simply "wasn't convenient" for foreign visitors to visit.  

But visits to Shanghai, when they did take place, were a pleasant and decadent break from Peking.

Coloured shirts were on sale in the Shanghai department stores, as were chocolates wrapped in silver foil. You could even get even pepper steak and Souffle Grand Marnier, without the Grand Marnier, in the wonderful vestige of pre-1949 Shanghai - the Red House Restaurant.

Today in Beijing, the sky is rarely blue, the bicycles have all but gone, and the shops are overflowing with consumer products and consumers.

Shelley Warner


Major brands are present on every thoroughfare; there is too much choice available between Chinese and international cuisines, and travel, except to Tibet, is unrestricted.

The old city with its hutongs and ancient archways, and the old City Wall, have all but disappeared. The city is taking on a new character, more befitting, perhaps, the 21st century, but there are things about the Peking of 1973 that I will always miss.

Tony Voutas: Life inside the cocoon

Forty years ago, even for those Australians who had completed Chinese or Asian studies, one felt like an explorer when entering China for the first time.

Timeline: 40 years of reporting from China


An extra pace in heartbeat as one walked across the Lohwu bridge rolling one's luggage towards the green-uniformed border control guards on the other side.

After entry, then the first taste of Chinese hospitality and the privileged treatment accorded to arriving foreigners.

A jovial English-speaking host walked you along the Shumchun (Shenzhen) railway platform and up a stairway to a restaurant where you were offered a multi-course tasty meal, and saw the first evidence of China's doctrine of self-sufficiency. No Coca Cola here, the soft drink was different in taste, sugar-heavy.

From the restaurant window you could gaze across fields of agricultural land and a low-lying building or two.

One learnt so quickly, in the 1970s through to the mid-1980s, of the local mastery of balancing being the warmest and proper of hosts, and successfully insulating the resident and visiting foreigners in a comfortable cocoon.

Initially the glass wall separating us foreigners from ordinary Chinese and their lives was fairly impenetrable. 

Meetings with Chinese were organised by departments or agencies "responsible" for one's presence in China, and had to involve at least two Chinese officials.

Foreigners could only live in designated compounds or a couple of approved hotels, and converted their hard currencies into Foreign Exchange Certificates (FECs), but not the RMB used by the local population. 

We had the privilege of shopping in "friendship" stores and buying imported goods with FEC, but were not allowed access to Chinese language newspapers.  

If one went to a "people's restaurant" and sat down at a large round table where Chinese were eating, the restaurant manager would quickly caution the Chinese customers not to speak to the foreigners, and the crowded table would become more crowded, as people moved away from you.

What has been exciting for an Aussie immersed in China in each of the four decades since 1973 was the bit-by-bit perforation of the cocoon that insulated foreigners from the real China.

Tony Voutas

When being invited by one's ever-excellent hosts to a performance of Peking Opera, the whole audience would stand when the foreigners arrived. Marrying a Chinese was an absolute no-no.

So what could an Aussie do whilst comfortably isolated in this cocoon?

Australians led the way with our own helmsman - ambassador Stephen FitzGerald - who initiated the Down Under Club in the bomb-shelter basement of the Australian embassy, and many lively nights there brightened up the rather quiet expatriate scene.

One was allowed to cycle in the real Beijing up to the signs saying "no foreigners beyond this point", and this, in a funny way, put us in touch with part of real China as we cycled to historical sites, markets and hutongs.

What has been exciting for an Aussie immersed in China in each of the four decades since 1973 was the bit-by-bit perforation of the cocoon that insulated foreigners from the real China - it is now so much more an open society. 

Communication, cross-cultural team work, co-operative research, debate, partying, love lives, international travel and study, and the global environment of the internet now only leave a few hanging shreds of the cocoon.

One thankful indicator of this is that we foreigners are not as privileged as before.

Topics: history, abc, community-and-society, china, australia

First posted November 06, 2013 10:59:09