My China Story: Tracey Holmes (Catch up Online)
This event was held on Thursday 28 July 2022.
The Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture (IAC) has launched a face-to-face conversation series entitled My China Story. The series invites Australian public figures from a wide range of professions who have lived and worked in China for an extensive period of time to share their lived experiences and times in China, enabling audiences to build an understanding of multifaceted China.
We are thrilled to announce that our second episode features the highly successful and celebrated TV and radio presenter, journalist, author and educator, Tracey Holmes. Tracey has 30 years of experience as an international anchor and journalist on ABC Australia, China Global Television Network (Beijing), CNN International (Abu Dhabi), Arirang TV (Seoul) and Dubai Eye. She was the first Australian female to host a national sports program - ABC Grandstand. She has anchored, reported and commentated for many of the world's biggest events, including 14 Olympic Games. She is currently the host and executive producer of The Ticket on the ABC, focusing on the politics, governance and business of sport. As an educator and mentor, Tracey has taught at the University of Technology, Sydney, Macleay College, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and IOC’s Young Reporters Program. In Feb 2022 the IOC awarded Tracey the 2021 Women and Sports Award for Oceania for her journalism, leadership and mentorship, the first journalist to receive this prestigious award.
Tracey lived and worked in Hong Kong from 2002 to 2004. She moved to mainland China and worked at China Central Television from 2005 to 2006, again in 2008, and worked at China Global Television Network in 2010. On the family history front, in late 2018, it was discovered that her paternal great-great grandfather was a doctor of Chinese medicine called Joseph Lin, who came to Australia from Fujian, China in the 1850s to treat Chinese gold miners in Cooma NSW and settled in Gundagai. He married an Anglo-Australian woman and they had three children. They changed the children’s Chinese family name from Lin to Holmes to avoid racial discrimination.
Tracey’s life and work experiences in Hong Kong and mainland China, and her many stories about the Chinese society, culture, language, people, street food and the broadcasting system will provide many insights in the China of the last two decades. And her success story as a journalist and broadcaster will be an inspiration for many.
This session was opened by Kevin Hobgood-Brown AM, Managing Director of HHK Advisory Pty Ltd, Chair of the Advisory Board of the China Studies Centre of Sydney University and former Chair of the Foundation for Australian Studies in China.
Chinese Music Appreciation 2: Pipa Pathways
The pipa (4-stringed lute), like the guzheng, is another well-known instrument from China. Of Persian ancestry, it has charmed countless audiences over many centuries to the present day in solo and ensemble contexts. Sydney-based virtuoso Dr Lulu Liu presents an exciting demonstration of the diverse palette of tone colours and techniques on the modern pipa in traditional and contemporary use. Her demonstration is followed by a performance by the Australian Pipa Association.
Biographies
 | Tracey HolmesTracey Holmes is an award-winning journalist and anchor on ABC Australia (Radio, TV, Online) and is the host and executive producer of The Ticket, a weekly program of in-depth analysis of the major issues in sports business, politics and governance. Tracey has 30 years of experience in journalism and communications. She has worked as an international anchor and journalist on ABC Australia, China Global Television Network (Beijing), CNN International (Abu Dhabi), Arirang TV (Seoul) and Dubai Eye. She has anchored, reported and commentated for many of the world's biggest events, including 14 Olympic Games around the world and FIFA World Cup since 1998. Tracey was the first Australian female to host a national sports program - ABC Grandstand. She was also the founding member and the only female regular panellist of Fox Sports highest rating program The Back Page from 1991 to 2001. While much of her career has been focused on the world’s biggest sporting events, it has been her fascination with sport’s place in society at large that has taken her sports coverage out of the realm of results and statistics and into its rightful place as an examination of society, nationalism, politics, law, business and humanity. Her ABC program The Ticket was named ‘Sport Australia Best Analysis of Sport Business’. It was also the runner-up in the international AIPS sport press awards for best audio program and a finalist in the New York Radio Awards. Tracey is an award-winning interviewer, having interviewed a collection of the world’s most interesting people – from Prime Ministers to Presidents, Kings and Sheikhs, from awe inspiring athletes to challenging and thought-provoking academics, from legendary entertainers to the ordinary men and women in the street. She has twice been named as a finalist in the Walkley Awards. As well as being recognised internationally as a broadcast journalist and anchor of both news/current affairs and sports programs, Tracey has also written extensively for op-ed pages and feature pages of leading daily newspapers. She is a published author, has published academic work and has been a regular guest commentator for media outlets around the world. Tracey has a Masters in Communications from Griffith University and is studying a graduate diploma of Sports Law at the Melbourne Law School. As an educator and mentor, Tracey has designed learning programs and taught at the University of Technology, Sydney, Macleay College, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and IOC’s Young Reporters Program. Tracey lived and worked in Hong Kong from 2002 to 2004. She moved to mainland China and worked at China Central Television from 2005 to 2006, again in 2008, and worked at China Global Television Network in 2010. Tracey was back in Beijing in Feb 2022 covering the Winter Olympics for ABC Australia. There IOC awarded Tracey the 2021 Women and Sports Award for Oceania. She is the first journalist to win this prestigious award, in recognition of her journalism, leadership and mentorship for the next generation of women sports journalists. |
 | Kevin Hobgood-Brown AMKevin Hobgood-Brown AM is the Managing Director of HHK Advisory Pty Ltd, a corporate advisory firm focused on investment and infrastructure projects involving Australia and China. Kevin was an international law firm partner where he had postings in Beijing, San Francisco, Taipei and Sydney. Kevin served as the Deputy Chair of the Australian government’s Australia-China Council. He was the national President of the Australia China Business Council from 2005 through 2008. He is the Chair of the Advisory Board of the China Studies Centre of Sydney University and served on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture of Western Sydney University. Kevin taught at the Law School of Beijing University from 1983-87. Kevin is the Chair of the Foundation for Australian Studies in China, a non-profit foundation created in 2011 to support the BHP Chair of Australian Studies at Beijing University and to support the 39 Australian Studies Centres located at Chinese universities and institutes throughout China. |
 | Dr Liu Lu (pipa)Dr Lulu Liu (also known as Liu Lu 刘璐) is Lecturer in Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. She commenced pipa study at the age of six, completing her undergraduate studies on pipa performance at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She received her doctorate from the University of Sydney in 2019 for a thesis entitled ‘The Chinese pipa and its music, from conservatory to concert hall and beyond: Case studies of pedagogues, popularisers and promoters.’ Her article, ‘Contemporary Chinese pipa music and its future’, was published in Asian Musicology in 2012, and her book chapter on the canonization of the pipa repertoire was published with Routledge in 2020. She has contributed a growing number of articles and chapters in journals and books while continuing to engage as an internationally performer on the pipa. She frequently performs new pipa works by contemporary composers. She has featured on the ABC Radio National Program including: The Rhythm Divine in the episode ‘Chinese Crossroads’ (2016) and “The Music of China” On The Music Show with Andrew Ford (2018). Two documentaries of Lulu’s musical pathways with China Central Television CCTV were broadcast in both 2019 and 2022. |
