This is a past event. Registration is closed. View other Australian Institute of International Affairs Queensland events.
Event Schedule
5.30pm to 6pm - Registration and drinks
6pm to 7pm - Presentation and book launch by historian David Walker.
This event is free for AIIA Qld members and AIIA members from other states and territories. Non-members pay $10 and student non-members $5. Registrants can choose to participate in the event online or in-person. In-person registrants can also buy a copy of David's book on the evening.
Details for viewing online: After registering, on July 26 you will receive a follow-up confirmation email containing further details on how to join the webinar which will commence at 6pm AEST. If you have not received an email by early afternoon, please check your junk folder. Interstate AIIA members can view online for free.
Happy Together begins with the story of how the Li family travelled
from their ancient home in Shanxi Province to Inner Mongolia when
severe drought and a crippling famine struck northern China in the
late nineteenth century. They began a new life farming the remote
grasslands. In the first decades of the twentieth century,
they prospered as landowners and teachers but could not escape the
ravages of warlords, armies and revolutionaries. After 1949, in the New
China, the 'landlord hats' and relative prosperity of Li Yao's mother
and father led to great personal suffering. Their children grew up in Mao's China.
Li Yao dreamt of becoming a writer, but those dreams were swept away by the Cultural Revolution. His story is interwoven with that of David Walker, who was born around the same time, but a world away. The Walkers had started their pioneering life in the remote near north of South Australia. Stephen FitzGerald, Australia's first Ambassador to the PRC
has called Happy Together: 'A work of great ingenuity and fascination' while the writer Alexis Wright calls it: 'An inspiring and insightful story for our times'.
