Category: News

‘Chinese Australian Whispers’ is about oral histories and researching your family. It explores how memories and stories pass through the generations and the gaps and distortions that are created over time. ‘Chinese Australian Whispers’ was born of the idea that there is much of value in oral history recordings for family historians, in particular those with Chinese ancestry.

Join Professional Historian and Curator Dr Sophie Couchman and Nikolaus Yee as we discuss the making of ‘Chinese Australian Whispers’ with four members of CAFHOV (Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria): Terry Young, Marie Hammond, Paula Herlihy and Peter Liefman as we discuss the making of this podcast. We will also be treated to a special performance by Dr Wang Zheng Ting who composed the music for the podcast and who also shares his story in one episode.

The full podcast will be launched on the night but you can learn more about it here or on your favorite podcasting app (eg. Apple podcasts, Spotify, Castbox, Podbean).

This project was created with in-kind support from the Museum of Chinese Australian History, the Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria, Dr Sophie Couchman and Nikolaus Yee.

We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Local History Grants Program and Public Record Office Victoria, supported by the Victorian Government through the Community Support Fund.

Date: Tuesday, March 4, 6:30 – 7:30pm AEDT

Location: Museum of Chinese Australian History, 22 Cohen Place Melbourne, VIC 3000

Cost: FREE

by Irene Poon

On Saturday 4 December 2021, CAFHOV held an event at the Chinese Museum to celebrate 20 years since the founding of our group. For attendees it was also an occasion to meet face-to-face, the first time since February 2021 due to COVID lockdowns, and to meet two new members. In addition, it was an opportunity to thank the CEDT Indexing Project Team again for their key role in CAFHOV being awarded the Victorian Community Local History Project Award 2021.

Our new CAFHOV President, Anna Wolf, welcomed everyone warmly before one of the original founding members, Robyn Ansell, gave a short talk about some of the founders and past activities of CAFHOV to an audience mainly of members who joined in the last five years. This was then followed by Sophie Couchman presenting Life Membership Certificates to both Robyn and Jim Twycross and thanking them for their years of contributing time as office bearers and helping other CAFHOV members with family history research. Jim also proudly showed off his recently published book, Footprints in History: A Comprehensive History of the life and times of the Ah Shin Family, achieved after many years of research. Robyn and Jim now join Maurice and Eunice Leong in CAFHOV’s Life Members Club.