Teacher and writer between two worlds
Nov 15, 2016 5:28:12 GMT -5
Post by helen on Nov 15, 2016 5:28:12 GMT -5
Mavis Yen, 1916-2008
SOME people are fated to live in interesting times, and Mavis Yen was one. She was born in Australia and lived in China before and after the revolution before moving back to Australia, taking university degrees and writing a book when most people are starting retirement.
Mavis Gock Ming, who has died aged 92, was born in Perth, one of five children. Her father, William Gock Ming, had arrived there in 1890 at 18. His older brother had established a produce business and when he returned to China, William took over his share.
He also took English lessons and his teacher was Mabel Jenkins, a dressmaker and Christian doing good works by teaching English. Married in 1910, they faced discrimination, starting with her family, who cut off contact.
Mavis started her education in a convent school then, in 1925, William took the family to China. The move from sleepy Perth to the thriving metropolis of Shanghai was exciting for young Mavis but her mother died of smallpox the next year.
William's family arranged a new marriage for him, to a local girl aged about 16 called Daisy. They had three children as they moved around China over the next few years. Mavis had a mixed education, from Baptist missionary school and village temple school to a French convent in Hong Kong. Finally the family returned to Shanghai, where Mavis went to an international school with teachers from England. She excelled at sports such as hockey and swimming and matriculated in 1933.
As the political situation worsened in China, William sent the children to Sydney. Mavis arrived in early 1935 but, when she did not get into university, her father directed her to return to Shanghai to learn shorthand and typing.
She did office work before the Women's League of Health offered her a position as a teacher. She talked her father into returning to Australia in 1938, earned her teaching certificate and went to Hong Kong in 1939, working in a gymnasium. She stayed in Hong Kong until the Japanese invaded in 1941 then went to Chunking (Chongqing) in central China, where she worked in refugee relief for the British embassy. In 1944 she was repatriated as a refugee and spent time in India before making her way back to Sydney.
Mavis's brother and sisters were settled in Sydney by then but she was restless. In 1946 she returned to China, which cut her off from her Australian family for nearly 40 years. She worked for the Chinese Industrial Co-operative movement in Shanghai, which organised primary producers to form co-operatives. There she met Yen Tse Lung (Jeffrey Yen). He was educated, politically aware and fluent in English.
After the declaration of the People's of Republic of China in 1949, Mavis and Jeffrey went to Beijing. He worked for the government and she became one of the first English-language radio broadcasters on Radio Peking. They wed in 1950.
Mavis Gock Yen then became a journalist at the Xinhua news agency and taught English to staff journalists. In 1964 she joined the Number 2 Foreign Languages Institute and worked as an English teacher until her retirement. During the Cultural Revolution, she was imprisoned for six months then sent to a farm for two years. It was a time she never talked about but it cemented her determination to leave China. However, Jeffrey Yen decided to stay.
Yen and their daughter, Siaoman, arrived in Australia in 1981 and settled in Canberra. At 65, she enrolled in the Canberra College of Advanced Education, later the Australian National University, and completed a bachelor of arts majoring in professional writing in 1984 and a graduate diploma in applied economics in 1986. She fully embraced university life, creating a second home at the ANU library. Newly arrived Chinese students were usually referred to her for advice, with a meal thrown in.
Interested in oral history, she used taped reminiscences of many older Australians of Chinese descent to write a detailed history of Chinese immigration to Australia during the 19th century. Although she worked on it relentlessly for years, it has not found a publisher.
In later years she moved to Sydney to be closer to her daughter. Mavis Yen is survived by Siaoman, her son-in-law Richard and grandson James, and siblings Edna, Sheila, Bill, Angela and Duncan. Jeffrey Yen died in 2004.
Harriet Veitch and Richard Horsburgh
www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/teacher-and-writer-between-two-worlds/2008/10/17/1223750325013.html
SOME people are fated to live in interesting times, and Mavis Yen was one. She was born in Australia and lived in China before and after the revolution before moving back to Australia, taking university degrees and writing a book when most people are starting retirement.
Mavis Gock Ming, who has died aged 92, was born in Perth, one of five children. Her father, William Gock Ming, had arrived there in 1890 at 18. His older brother had established a produce business and when he returned to China, William took over his share.
He also took English lessons and his teacher was Mabel Jenkins, a dressmaker and Christian doing good works by teaching English. Married in 1910, they faced discrimination, starting with her family, who cut off contact.
Mavis started her education in a convent school then, in 1925, William took the family to China. The move from sleepy Perth to the thriving metropolis of Shanghai was exciting for young Mavis but her mother died of smallpox the next year.
William's family arranged a new marriage for him, to a local girl aged about 16 called Daisy. They had three children as they moved around China over the next few years. Mavis had a mixed education, from Baptist missionary school and village temple school to a French convent in Hong Kong. Finally the family returned to Shanghai, where Mavis went to an international school with teachers from England. She excelled at sports such as hockey and swimming and matriculated in 1933.
As the political situation worsened in China, William sent the children to Sydney. Mavis arrived in early 1935 but, when she did not get into university, her father directed her to return to Shanghai to learn shorthand and typing.
She did office work before the Women's League of Health offered her a position as a teacher. She talked her father into returning to Australia in 1938, earned her teaching certificate and went to Hong Kong in 1939, working in a gymnasium. She stayed in Hong Kong until the Japanese invaded in 1941 then went to Chunking (Chongqing) in central China, where she worked in refugee relief for the British embassy. In 1944 she was repatriated as a refugee and spent time in India before making her way back to Sydney.
Mavis's brother and sisters were settled in Sydney by then but she was restless. In 1946 she returned to China, which cut her off from her Australian family for nearly 40 years. She worked for the Chinese Industrial Co-operative movement in Shanghai, which organised primary producers to form co-operatives. There she met Yen Tse Lung (Jeffrey Yen). He was educated, politically aware and fluent in English.
After the declaration of the People's of Republic of China in 1949, Mavis and Jeffrey went to Beijing. He worked for the government and she became one of the first English-language radio broadcasters on Radio Peking. They wed in 1950.
Mavis Gock Yen then became a journalist at the Xinhua news agency and taught English to staff journalists. In 1964 she joined the Number 2 Foreign Languages Institute and worked as an English teacher until her retirement. During the Cultural Revolution, she was imprisoned for six months then sent to a farm for two years. It was a time she never talked about but it cemented her determination to leave China. However, Jeffrey Yen decided to stay.
Yen and their daughter, Siaoman, arrived in Australia in 1981 and settled in Canberra. At 65, she enrolled in the Canberra College of Advanced Education, later the Australian National University, and completed a bachelor of arts majoring in professional writing in 1984 and a graduate diploma in applied economics in 1986. She fully embraced university life, creating a second home at the ANU library. Newly arrived Chinese students were usually referred to her for advice, with a meal thrown in.
Interested in oral history, she used taped reminiscences of many older Australians of Chinese descent to write a detailed history of Chinese immigration to Australia during the 19th century. Although she worked on it relentlessly for years, it has not found a publisher.
In later years she moved to Sydney to be closer to her daughter. Mavis Yen is survived by Siaoman, her son-in-law Richard and grandson James, and siblings Edna, Sheila, Bill, Angela and Duncan. Jeffrey Yen died in 2004.
Harriet Veitch and Richard Horsburgh
www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/teacher-and-writer-between-two-worlds/2008/10/17/1223750325013.html