Miss June Dally-Watkins' Chinese adventure

She’s been teaching Australians to mind their p's and q's for more than half a century and now the Queen of Aussie etiquette has a new target.

Miss June Dally-Watkins has gone global and she’s proving to be a hit amongst China’s burgeoning middle class.

Some say June Dally-Watkins was Australia's first super model and in the 40s and 50s she was the very least the most photographed.

But soon, modelling wasn't enough and at the age of 22 she saw a gap in the market.

"So many women and girls of all ages and even some men would come to me and say how do you walk like that? How do you do this?," says June. 

"And that's when my mother suggested I should start the school of personal development. 

"Mine was the first one ever in Australia and the first one outside of London and New York. Isn't that incredible? Way down here in Australia.

"I wanted to show that a woman can have a family and have her own business and that never happened before. I was the first woman to have her own corporate business."
June
Source: The Feed
Watkins finishing college is still in operation in Sydney and Brisbane. Her students still learn to talk, walk and dine the Dally way.

And just shy of her nintieth birthday, her mission has gone global: three years ago June Dally-Watkins and her Chinese business partner set up what she calls the Look Of Success program.

A three day crash course in the finer points of dining, fashion and appearence and and of course those all important good manners.

"I think they are more eager than here because they've only grown up using chopsticks and they have never understood western etiquette and Western good manners," she says.
June
Source: The Feed
Both the course and their teacher are proving to be a smash hit.

The classes like this one in Guanzhou attract young, wealthy women from all over the country keen to learn the Western way for both business and pleasure.

Cultural studies expert Ing Je Goa says the success of June Dally-Watkins' etiquette class represents a broader shift within Chinese society.

"The simple fact is this, the number of people who are reasonably well off has increased dramatically in the last  about 30 years.

"And we have an increasing number of people who can afford to travel in Australia, who can afford to send their kids to study in Australia."

And it's a big market: her course are run from the finest hotels, with students paying as much as four thousand dollars a head.

"If they were cheap then the Chinese people would think they weren't important," says June.
June
Source: The Feed
"They want  to be Westernised, the Chinese, they really want to understand how to conduct themselves when they are outside of China."

But June Dally-Watkins believes her classes aren't just about etiquette.

"The one child policy, everybody wanted to have a boy, now I want to make women pleased that they are female and proud and happy that they're female.

"Not only do I want to transform the way they look but the way they think, the way they dream and the way they imagine.

"All of that, to empower them physically and emotionally and mentally."
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By Corinn Grant
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