The Tao of Shepherding

By John Donnelly, Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2005, 410 pages, paperback, $29.95. Reviewed by Christine Choo in the October 2005 issue.

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Chinese in Australia have been the subject of comment for almost as long as they have been in this country. The trickle of Chinese into Australia grew into a flood when gold was discovered in Eastern Australia. Sojourners came here both freely and as forced labour -- indentured coolie labour -- with the view to making money then returning to the home country where they could tell tales of the Gold Mountain where fortunes were to be made. The opportunity to escape poverty, famine, family troubles and debtors contributed to the push-factors in the movement of Chinese to countries like Australia in the nineteenth century.

The Tao of Shepherding is set in the mid to late nineteenth century when two Chinese indentured labourers find themselves thrown together as shepherds on a station in New South Wales. Shiu Pi is as different from Angee as you could get, refined as Angee is robust. They have been taken on as an experiment by a cocky sheep grazier, O'Neill of Boorumbla. Angee has ventured abroad to escape mounting gambling debts that have alienated him from his family and kin. Shiu Pi, the son of a middle-ranking scholar, is bewildered to find himself kidnapped on the eve of sitting the scholar's examinations, in the midst of family intrigue and indiscretions. Each has a story and a past symbolised by a single precious object each man has managed to secret into the new environment in the outback.

The Chinese believe they are on their way to hell in reparation for their past lives. The sensibilities of the two men are confronted in different ways by the smells, sounds, food, language and behaviour of the Irish grazier Red Devil, his 'mad' Scottish shepherd White Beard, and the Indigenous owners of the land that is being farmed by O'Neill. As Shiu Pi observes when they arrive at Boorumbla in the cart,

Up front, Red Devil, red-faced from sunburn and his recent exertions, and Angee and I in the back. Perhaps these inhabitants have never received guests from the Middle Kingdom; and in that sense Angee and I are envoys of our great civilization.

Under the weight of their stares, I imagine us as the magisterial trinity of the Tao: Red Devil is the red-faced deity, Quan Cong, with his horses; and we are his associates, Angee the war mandarin, and myself, the civil mandarin. (p 174)

Citation

• Christine Choo. 'Review: The Tao of Shepherding by John Donnelly' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), October 2005. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 06 September 2010].

Back Cover Blurb

• I cannot begin to tell you of the horror of eating a chop ...
  
  Eating the food of the white devils is the least of Shiu Pi's concerns on his arrival in a new land. Kidnapped from the refinement of his home in China, Shiu Pi is sent to colonial Australia to work as a shepherd under the vast sky of the Riverina. Accompanied by Angee, a gambler and pragmatist accustomed to the back-alleys of Chinese society, Shiu Pi's voyage is one of revelation.
  
  Convinced that they are on a journey to hell, they debate and interpret a series of terrifying experiences. The lives of the white devils — the squatters and settlers — under whose command they labour, are beyond understanding. As outsiders, Shiu Pi and Angee are drawn to the indigenous people who share their fate at the hands of their masters. Ultimately, their combined wisdom leads them to embrace their alienation in this unforgiving land as the foundation of their friendship.

Have You Also Read?

• Bittersweet: An Indo-Fijian Experience
  
  Brij V Lal, Canberra: Pandanus Books, 2004, Paperback, $45.00
  Reviewed by Susan Tridgell in the April 2005 issue.
  
  The cover of Bittersweet is a haunting one. A young Indo-Fijian girl of eight or nine, dressed as if for a special occasion, looks back at the camera. Her expression is hard to interpret -- uncertainty? distress? It is a poignant reminder of the effect which Fiji's simmering ethnic tensions may have had on other Indo-Fijian children. The child's dress seems to symbolise the care and love of her family, but as historical onlookers, we know how fragile the shield of a family can be when it is threatened by communal violence. Bittersweet, indeed. The mixture of essays, memoirs, poems and short stories which make up this collection remain true to its title. There is affection for Fiji, ... read more.