Christine McEachran Liao lived at least two cultures - Anglo/Scottish Australian and Chinese. Born one of twins to William Henderson Eales, an architect, and Jean Dudley Eales, a microbiologist when the world was at war, she joined the first cohort to study Chinese at the newly established Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Melbourne in 1962. She went on to parlay bi-cultural knowledge across a career that included many ‘firsts’.

Her grandfather, a far-faring Scottish sea Captain, imbued the family with a fascination for Asia. Colombo Plan students from Singapore and Malaya were welcomed to Saturday evening dinners at their home in Camberwell. Christine and her mother began evening classes in Chinese.

Christine excelled at university and in 1965 she won a scholarship to study in Taiwan - the first Melbourne graduate to do so. There, she plunged into a vibrant world of Chinese writers, artists and philosophers who had made Taiwan home, including her future husband, James Tzeng Chiang Liao, a lecturer nine years her senior. She fell for his gentle manner. They were married three months later and the following year their first son Bill was born.

Christine was appointed tutor in Chinese at Melbourne University while completing her MA degree, becoming the first Melbourne graduate to be hired back into the Department. Her MA thesis, completed in 1972, focused on the modernist romantic poet Xu Zhimo. Her PhD, completed in 1980 - the first in Chinese studies at Melbourne, compared the symbolist poets Bian Zhilin and Ai Qing. Her choice of research topics suggests an inner romantic.

Her teaching focused on the eternal character of the Chinese language, on the depths of its literary heritage, on its enduring cultural value. Through the radical 1970s, she remained quietly conservative, a study of calm and reason. In 1983 she edited the Fontana Collection of Modern Chinese Writing. Her 1993 review of Julia Lin’s Anthology of Chinese Women’s Poetry notes how the book avoids any reference to the pressures that led to the Tiananmen Square massacre just a few years earlier.

Christine’s second son Tristan was born as she embarked on a second career as the founding Director of the Museum of Chinese Australian History, which opened in Melbourne’s Chinatown in 1985. She felt the Chinese contribution to Australian life had never been fully recognized and set about correcting that, navigating a path through the competing agendas of donors, sponsors, benefactors, grant providers and community expectations. As the local partner in a bi-cultural marriage, she was the perfect choice. Her Chinese was fluent and natural. She’d once interpreted for Prime Minister Bob Hawke. But it was, above all, the language of her marriage.

The Museum is now a must-visit on Melbourne’s tourism map. Tristan describes how, as a young boy, it was his second home as Christine worked long days and nights there. She successfully negotiated an exhibition of some of China’s Terracotta Warriors. But the refugee influx was sparking anti-Asian sentiment in 1980s Melbourne. Eldest son Bill was badly bullied and dropped out of high school. And there was little understanding of the challenges faced by professional women with young children. Christine later served as language advisor to the ABC, scanning some 250 news stories daily to check for unusual names that might trip up newsreaders.

Fast-forward to the tech boom of the late 1990s and Christine’s son Bill Liao has formed a company installing high-speed wireless broadband in commercial buildings, including a joint venture in Hong Kong. For last nine months of 1999, before the bubble burst, Christine was its interim CEO, negotiating approvals from local telecoms regulators and overseeing pilot installations in skyscrapers owned by Hong Kong’s property tycoons.

Family and home were the lodestone of her life. She was devoted to her husband James, supportive of his work in the China section of Radio Australia; he died before her in June 2021. And she delighted in her grandchildren, introducing them to her other passions - swimming and golf. In later life she insisted on the use of her middle name, McEachran, acknowledging her Scottish heritage and her mother’s powerful influence. Her home in Camberwell was rich in Asian treasures - one of her favourites, a fabric scale from ‘Dai Loong’, Melbourne’s Chinese dragon. Though she’d travelled widely, Camberwell was always home.

Christine McEachran Liao built an extraordinary career on Scottish industriousness and on her deep knowledge of the Chinese language and literature, while staying grounded in family life. While others puffed themselves as ‘China experts’ she simply got on with the job, parlaying her talents to create bi-cultural understanding. From researcher to teacher to museum director to broadcast language advisor to tech company director, she rarely sought the limelight, but when it shone in her direction, she shone back.

By: Christopher Nailer and other former students and colleagues in Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne.