The Tiger’s Mouth

Since 2008 I have been blogging at The Tiger’s Mouth. My first post, about John Ian Wing and the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, was published on 8 August 2008. Since then I’ve published over 130 posts.

I blog intermittently, when work and family life permit me the time. Posts are often on research tips and discoveries I’ve made, talks I’ve given, events I’ve attended, and interesting things I’ve read. Sometimes I write up little bits of research work that don’t yet have another home.

The blog’s name comes from the Bocca Tigris, or Bogue, or Humen (虎門), a narrow strait at the entry to the Pearl River in Guangdong, China. Shipping from Macau and Hong Kong passed through the Bocca Tigris on its way to Canton, and it was the site of major battles during both the First and Second Opium War. While neither of those things seems to have particular relevance to my work on Chinese Australian history, I’m also born in the year of the tiger, so it somehow had a nice ring to it.

Here are some of my favourite posts:

An indecipherable name and Rev. Dr Fullerton’s marriage shop, 19 July 2010
Where are the women?, 28 September 2012
Man Sue Bach, 1790–1862: the ‘oldest Chinese colonist’ in New South Wales, 23 February 2013
A mother’s struggle, 21 March 2013
Celestial City: misunderstanding the administration of immigration restriction, 29 August 2014

‘Entrance to the Pearl River, on the way to Canton’ by Baron von Reichenau (National Library of Australia, MAP Braga Collection Col./148)