Year 9 visit the Sym Choon Exhibition

On Tuesday 29 May Ms Christensen’s History class and Ms Qiu’s Chinese class visited the Adelaide Migration Museum, located behind the University of Adelaide. Split into two groups, the classes visited the various collections at the museum followed by the Sym Choon Story exhibition.

This exhibition told the story about Sym Choon’s life as a Chinese migrant to South Australia, the harsh reality of the racism in the 1800s and how the Choon family became very successful.

The exhibition included artefacts and the family story printed on an entire wall so we boys could see what their experience was like. It was amazing to learn that in 1901 the Immigration Restriction Act became law and the Government were no longer accepting migrants from non-European countries to Australia.

It was shocking to find that if a migrant did want to come into Australia from overseas, they had to pass a dictation test, sometimes in an obscure language they didn’t know. The South Australian Migration exhibit was fascinating, and our guide certainly knew the topic thoroughly. It was also interesting to learn that Adelaide was meant to be a planned city but that there was no gaol. The students were highly engaged in both exhibitions and the afternoon was enjoyed by all. I would like to thank Mrs Bartz for organising this wonderful experience and Ms Christensen and Ms Qiu for supervising us.

Meshach Begg (Year 9)