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“You cannot say it as the President / Governor / Prime Minister, readers will not lose interest.” Such were the warnings that Gwen Robinson would be understood to give by phone to a number of governors of the Central Bank, world trade, politicians and academics. No one at the Financial Times, where Gwen was a comment editor on the OP-ED page for several years, met anyone who could so well tame the Egos. The fact that such sumings came in an Australian accent raucous from a fearless soul that had covered wars and revolutions, transporting its luggage in random plastic bags, has made such involuntary listening.
“I have read it three times Jean Claude / Alan / Gerhard / Larry and I still do not get what you are trying to say”, was his idea to drop a figure slowly. They had professional reasons to stay on good terms with her. Most also had personal people. Under Gwen's natural franchise was a chatty golden heart. Few major global figures have passed it. But its networking derives from a much deeper friendship capacity.
Gwen Robinson, who died last week at the age of 65 in a Bangkok hospital, which has been his base in the past 15 years, has come from one of the best journalistic history in Australia. His father, Peter Robinson, was a distinguished foreign correspondent, editor -in -chief of Australian Financial Review and columnist for several newspapers. It was in Japan in the 1950s, where Peter wrote tests for an English magazine belonging to Asahi Shimbun, that he met Gwen's mother, Haruko Morita. Haruko, also a longtime journalist, the most loved on writing on dance and culture.
Gwen was born in Tokyo in 1960. His brother, Mark Robinson, arrived a year later. The family moved to Australia in 1964. “My parents estimated that we would not be considered Japanese in Japan,” said Mark. They were not always considered Australians in Australia either. Gwen and Mark were often the only children with Asian blood in their different schools in Sydney and Canberra. They got used to racial taunts. Gwen would retaliate. “She had several fights with girls in the school toilet,” recalls Mark. No one, including his parents, could control it.
A turbulent adolescence, and the feeling that it did not belong to Australia or in Japan, although it supported solid characteristics of the two, was a prologue for life Gwen selected. After graduating from Asian History and Sociology of the Australian National University and a fate as a local journalist, Gwen was sent to Manila by the National Times. His timing was impeccable. She arrived a few months before the “Persal” Revolution of the Philippines in 1986 which overthrew the brutal Kleptocracy of Ferdinand Marcos. Gwen knew the failed coupters of the army, the leaders of the successful opposition of Cory Aquino, the church leaders and the communist rebels. Most could be found at one time or another managing in its tiny apartment on Manila bay.
“An invitation to a dinner instead of Gwen would find you with Marxist activists, couple leaders, intelligence leaders, ambassadors and generals,” recalls Humphrey Hawksley, correspondent for the BBC. Gwen was 26 years old and just over five feet. Pattered variously in Manila, Bangkok, Tokyo but especially on the open road, and with a thickening pocket of newspaper strings, Gwen has never been attached for a long time. It also applied to his romantic life. “It was difficult to imagine that whoever was both flexible enough to stay married to Gwen and interesting enough to want it,” explains Mark.
Gwen has rather created a booming and intertwining galaxy of friends. Many owe him their marriage. A bilateral drink in the early evening with Gwen – whether in the London Groucho club, the Geronimo bar in the Tokyo Roppongi district, or the Thailand club of foreign correspondents where she was president for two years – would end in the short hours and with new knowledge. She liked to make presentations, exchange gossip, share her passion for food, ideas and endless titbits.
She saw bullshit like jellyfish. But his kindness towards young journalists, his friends of friends, those who suffer from broken proverbial wings and whoever looked for advice, was born of a generous nature that overshadowed her occasional hazard. “It is never as good as you hope or as bad as you fear,” she explains the protégés. When Gwen left the FT in 2013 after working for almost two decades of Tokyo, London, Washington and Bangkok, his colleagues were instantly struck by how less they now knew what was going on inside the newspaper.
Gwen has devoted most of its last years to Myanmar, a country destroyed by the military regime and ethnic cleaning. She covered her for Nikkei Asia, where she was editor -in -chief, and as a principal researcher at Bangkok's Chulalongkory University Tank's Institute of Security and International Studies. Although she suffers from cancer, she hated lingering on her misfortunes. His route has never pointed out. A question about how she is wrong was adorned by a boost on the life of her questioner. On his deathbed, Gwen's brother played his 68 video messages from friends. Although she would have rejected him as a nonsense, the universe also seemed to tip her hand. The day before his death, his hospital was shaken by the effects of an earthquake of amplitude of 7.7 which devastated the Myanmar. She passed during the peak SakuraThe Brievely Brief Cherry Season of Japan.
