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White Aussie from China: 1933

A 1933 newsreel clip about an Australian whose parents took him to China where they died. He was adopted by a Chinese family and grew up without learning English (go here if video does not load on Danwei).

A comment on the Youtube version of the video reads:

Ernest Sung Yee was born in the town of Quirindi in New South Wales, Australia in 1901. At about 8 years of age, he went with his father Sung Yee and brother to China. He grew up there, returning to Australia as an adult. There are files about his travels from and back to Australia in the National Archives of Australia (a quick search of the RecordSearch database for 'Ernest Sung Yee' brings up some results). He was one of many Australian-born children who went to live with family in China.

There are currently 8 Comments for White Aussie from China: 1933.

Comments on White Aussie from China: 1933

So Da Shan wasn't the first to speak fluent Chinese!

Interesting. Reminds me of Carma Hinton, the American scholar and film director (her work includes the documentaries 'Mοrning Sun' and 'The Gate οf Heavenly Peace') who was born in Beijing in 1949 and lived there for 21 years. She provides the Chinese narration for 'The Gate οf Heavenly Peace' (listen to her Chinese at link).

Wow. Vintage! What dialect is this?

BTW, Goldkorn 老师, this doesn't feel like a 1993 newsreel clip...

[Like the title says, it's from 1933. Text corrected. --JM]

I would like to know what later happened to him. It is very interesting story. What happend to him, his offspring's?

he's speaking Cantonese with a cute accent. where was he brought up?

An interesting comparison would be to the case of Maria Hertogh in Malaya, which led to race riots in Singapore in 1950.

He is definitely not speaking Cantonese.

He might live somewhere near Shanghai.

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