The sagacious oriental philosopher goes on to say the media should regularly join RRR on his fascinating celestial voyage instead of going missing on a news slow boat to China writing mind numbing reports about who makes the best spring rolls and dim sims in town .
He is referring, of course, to Darwin agronomist and exceptionally active activist, Robert Wesley-Smith, 80, below, who , with extensive national and international connections and involvement in many campaigns , including the long East Timor struggle , a founding member of NT Civil Liberties , is a constant source of interesting and unusual stories , very few of which get media coverage .
However . he is frequently mentioned in this blog along with photographs , letters , news cuttings from his vast , important collections .
During recent weeks he has been particularly busy meeting a stream of people , some from overseas and interstate , each and every one worthy of media coverage .
The cavalcade included a couple - Dr Claire Roberts and her husband Emeritus Professor Nicholas Jose , both with extremely strong Chinese connections and interests .
An art historian at Melbourne University , Dr Roberts specialises in modern and contemporary Chinese art and the cultural flow between Australia and Asia .
She is fluent in Mandarin , having studied at the Beijing Languages Institute (1978-79) and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (1979-81).
She was also Curator at the Museum of Chinese-Australian History, Melbourne (1986-88) and Senior Curator of Asian Arts at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney (1988-2010).
Her extensive CV states she was a Post-doctoral Fellow with Geremie R Barmé's Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship (2007-9); Research Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University (2009-10); Coordinate Program Fellow, Harvard-Yenching Institute (2011) and Senior Lecturer in Art History, University of Adelaide (2012-2014).
Recent publications include Photography and China (2010) and Friendship in Art: Fou Lei and Huang Binhong (2010). Her current ARC Future Fellowship project focuses on the international context of modern and contemporary Chinese art.
She curated numerous exhibitions including Yang Zhichao: Chinese Bible (Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney, 2015), ‘Go Figure! Contemporary Chinese Portraiture’ (National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 2012), ‘The Great Wall of China', a collaborative project with the National Museum of China, Beijing (Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2006) and New Art From China: Post Mao Product (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1992).
Dr Roberts presented Wesley- Smith with a copy of Ian Fairweather : A Life in Letters , she co-wrote with John Thompson.in 2019, having also written Fairweather and China ,published in 2021.
Fairweather (1891-1974) , a nomadic , adventurous painter who travelled extensively in China and the Pacific , taught art in Hong Kong, came to Melbourne in 1934, became a major force in the history of contemporary painting, according to McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art .
At one stage Fairweather lived in the wreck of a ship in Darwin , then built a raft and set forth for Dili, Portuguese Timor , during which he was officialy listed as having perished . He refused to be rescued by a passing ship and was eventually washed up on Timor, having eaten plankton to survive.
Back in Australia , he took up residence on Bribie Island, Queensland .
Wesley-Smith showed Dr Roberts the above large Chinese figure,recently given a quick dust, of a man holding a peach ,which his grandfather , a salesman for Lamson Paragon, had bought during his travels in China and India . Wesley-Smith's father was been born in India . Several Adelaide institutions have shown an interest in the Chinese object , made from ebony..
Nicholas Jose , born in London , educated mainly in Australia , is an academic, novelist and professor of creative writing at the University of Adelaide and the Bath Spa University, England. Professor Jose travelled widely in China and was cultural counsellor in the Australian Embassy, Beijing, l987-1990.
He co-translated The Finish Line by Sang Ye (1994) and The Ape Herd by Mang Ke (included in Poems for the Millennium, 1998)
In addition ,he acted as curatorial advisor to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney on the exhibitions Mao Goes Pop (1993) and ART TAIWAN (1995) and co-edited ART TAIWAN (1995)
A possible distant relative , Roger Jose, once lived in an upturned watertank in the isolated Territory town of Borroloola , in the Gulf country . He wrote a memoir about him entitled Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola , a copy of which he gave to Wesley-Smith. Roger Jose ,who walked into Borroloola in l916, appeared in a 1962 BBC film , Hermits of Borroloola, made by David Attenborough .
After visiting Rural Rebel Rob at his rural ranch , the couple headed to Timor Leste for three days , during which they visited Balibo .
Upon their return to Darwin they dined at the waterfront with Wesley-Smith and a woman from Timor Aid ,Maria do Ceu Lopes da Silva ,who had flown in from Sydney and is planning an exhibition of local art in Timor Leste.
Visiting former prominent Darwin activists from south , with whom Wesley--Smith was recently reunited , were Stuart Highway (mentioned in Little Darwin ), from Sydney, and anthropologist Dr Bill Day , from Western Australia , involved in the Freedom for East Timor struggle, Aboriginal landrights and other issues in bygone years , .
Each was surely worth mention in the local media. Nope . The fact that Wesley-Smith had also met up in Darwin with a longtime friend , Timor Leste president Jose Ramos Horta , failed to get the coverage you would expect from an alert , tuned in media..
And when another Timor Leste associate and activist ,Ego Lemos , recently lobbed in Darwin , and performed at a NIghtcliff venue , covering the environment , permaculture ,sustainability , Wesley-Smith was invited to make a speech in which he urged Territorians to visit Timor- Leste instead of Bali . He also gave former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander a serve for their bugging of the Dili office, in negotiations over the Sunrise oil field , which could have made an interesting report .
A few other pointers . Wesley -Smith is planting out his rural property with trees to help bees , even making hives for them and is extending his lake .
And during all this activity his vacuum cleaner broke down , causing him to dash off and buy a new one so that his residence , minus some familiar cobwebs, is now ship- shape underfoot for visitors . Writing his memoirs ,with the provisional title Rural Rebel Rob , has been put on hold .
