International Affairs

ATSY WANG spent three years at the University of Sydney studying Pharmacy in the 1960s. Last year, Patsy visited Women’s College for the first time, tracing the footsteps of her mother, (Alma) Mary Wang [CHONG], who had been a student at Women’s College from 1926-28.

Mary Chong was Dux of Dubbo High School in 1925. She entered Women’s College with an exhibition scholarship to the University, a NSW State Bursary to purchase text books, and a Bundock Scholarship which supported her College fees. After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Education from Sydney University –one of the first Australian-born Chinese students to graduate from an Australian university, and the first at Women’s College – she became Secretary to the Chinese Consul General in Sydney and in the early 1930s was appointed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nanking, China. Mary worked as a broadcaster and journalist in Beijing, and during World War II she co-edited the Shanghai-English newspaper, The China Critic . She cultivated a lifelong interest in international affairs.

Mary returned to Australia from China with her husband and three children (including Patsy) in 1957. She became secretary to the general manager of Readers Digest and later worked as a school teacher at Kingsgrove High School and for the NSW Education Department Blackfriars Correspondence School, writing language materials for outback students and studying postgraduate psychology.

It was at St George Girls’ High School in the 1950s that Mary’s daughter Patsy was befriended by fellow student Ruth Shatford, forging a connection which would eventually lead to Patsy’s visit to Women’s College more than sixty years later. Dr Ruth Shatford was Acting Principal of the College in 2003 between the terms of Quentin Bryce AD CVO and Yvonne Rate AM.

During her visit to the College, Patsy saw the room where her mother had been the student librarian (now the Principal’s Office) and picked her mother out from the annual College photographs hung in the Menzies corridor. “It was hard to recognise her at first, but exciting to see her photo on the wall at the College. I wish I had asked my mother more about her time at the College,” Patsy remarked.

Patsy remembers her mother as “very political and very determined.” Mary was vocal in her objections to the White Australia Policy in the 1930s, but she preserved her admiration for Australian freedom and opportunity throughout her life. On returning to Australia in 1957 she wrote an article for her old school magazine, reflecting:

In no country in the world today is there more freedom or more opportunities for people to enjoy the full fruits of their labour than there are in Australia. This country and its people have been far more greatly blessed than most other peoples of the earth. But how are we to preserve our happy way of life in a world torn with turmoil and strife? There is only one answer. War must be averted at all costs. But war can only be averted and true peace achieved in one way, and that is, through genuine international understanding and goodwill. The nations of the world must learn to live together – to live and let live. This is not an accomplishment that can be achieved without effort, but it is not an unattainable ideal. It requires the whole-hearted co-operation of every person, and especially our young people, to bring this ideal to its full realisation.