Love across racial boundaries: the true history behind Netflix’s My Brilliant Career

In the new Netflix adaptation of Miles Franklin's 1901 Australian novel, My Brilliant Career, Chinese Australian actor Christopher Chung portrays the lead romantic role of Harry Beecham. Harry is the handsome and wealthy suitor of the novel's protagonist, Sybylla Melvyn. Sybylla, a headstrong daughter of a once-prosperous British Australian farming family, struggles to navigate her circumstances.

The casting of a Chinese or mixed Chinese-European actor for Harry marks a dramatic departure from the original novel. Despite some viewers finding this casting anachronistic, such relationships were indeed possible in Australia at the turn of the last century.

During Franklin's novel's setting, there were around 33,000 Chinese people in Australia, making up less than 1% of the population. Although Chinese men outnumbered women due to historical factors, they were present in many rural and urban communities, particularly in the eastern states of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria.

In addition to immigrants, there were also Australians of mixed Chinese-European heritage, known as "half-caste Chinese." About 3,000 people of this heritage were counted in official statistics in 1901.

Relationships between Chinese men and white women were common in colonial Australia, with an estimated 1,000 legal marriages between the two groups in New South Wales and Victoria alone during the 19th century. These unions often occurred in secret due to social, cultural, legal, and economic restrictions on Chinese immigration.

The exact number of such relationships remains unknown, but numerous long-term de facto partnerships, cohabitation, and other liaisons were also prevalent. Notable examples include the marriage of Chinese goldminer George Gwok Ah Poo to white woman Emma Ann Lowe and the interracial couple Quong Tart and Margaret Scarlett, who lived in a lavish mansion and had several children together.