Helene Chung Martin, journalist and author, is a former Beijing correspondent, the first female posted abroad by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). She is an adjunct research fellow at Monash Asia Institute, Melbourne, and the author of Shouting from China, Gentle John My Love My Loss, Lazy Man in China and her most recent memoir, published by ABC Books, Ching Chong China Girl.
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Born in Hobart, Helene Chung is a fourth-generation Tasmanian Chinese, the younger daughter of Dorothy Henry and Charles Chung. In the 1880s her maternal great-grandfather left the southern Chinese county of Taishan (or Toishan) for the tin mines of northern Tasmania where, like so many around him, he became an opium addict. His son, Helene's grandfather, had no time for the pipe. He worked tirelessly in the tin fields and elsewhere, establishing himself as a fruit merchant, head of Hobart's Henry & Co. Helene's paternal grandfather came from neighbouring Xinhui (or Sunwei) County, began as a market gardener in Hobart and also became a fruit merchant, in partnership with Ah Ham & Co. and with his own firm, Chung Sing & Co.
Helene attended St Mary's College and graduated from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) and a Master of Arts in history. On campus she spent most time cavorting about on stage or directing plays for the Old Nick Company.
Her first interview, on a claimed sighting of the extinct Tasmanian tiger, was broadcast on the ABC radio program AM in 1968. As a freelancer for three years overseas, in Singapore, Hong Kong, London and Cairo, in 1971 she made headlines with the first radio interview granted by The Princess Anne. Back with the ABC, she joined This Day Tonight in 1974, so becoming the first non-white reporter on Australian television. In 1976 Helene interviewed her former university classmate, history lecturer John Martin, who became the love of her life. The first woman posted abroad by the ABC, as Beijing correspondent 1983-1986, she also freelanced for BBC, CBS, Hong Kong radio, NPR and NZBC.