Unnecessary Inventions

Abstract

In this chapter I read the unsettling poetics of a unique diary, written by Jong Ah Sing (c. 1837–1900), a Chinese gold-miner arrested after a knife fight at the camp where he lived, near Dunolly, Victoria, in 1867. The Case was written sometime between 1867, when Jong was arrested for assault (Moore and Tully 62–63), and 1872, the date on the book. It was donated to the State Library of Victoria in 1880. It is listed as “Diary [manuscript]” on the Library catalogue, but the words “The Case” appear on the title page. Though the original remains unpublished, I italicize the title because it appears as a finished work, taking the form of a small handmade book. In the preface to Ruth Moore’s and his own “translated” edition of The Case, Jim Tully writes that it is “not a diary but a…personal exoneration [written] to seek freedom [from Yarra Bend Asylum] and justice” (ix). In their Introduction, however, the book is referred to as “reminiscences” (1). (Moore and Tully have argued that Jong’s name should be Jong Ah Siug, as he writes his name as Siug more often than Sing in The Case—an argument supported by Siegel, in his statistically based, linguistic analysis of Jong’s book. However, he cites the counterargument that Jong may have transcribed his name incorrectly, and that Siug is not a Cantonese name (311). I have retained Sing, for these reasons, as well as to conform with his name as catalogued by the State Library of Victoria.)

The Case. Written 1867?–1872; published in transliterated English version Moore and Tully 2000; excerpted in essay by Shen on Chinese Australian autobiography, 2001.