2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge Review: Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung

Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blurb from Goodreads

This is an original take on a classic story – how a child of immigrants moves between two cultures. In place of piety and predictability, however, Unpolished Gem offers a vivid and ironic sense of both worlds. It combines the story of Pung’s life growing up in suburban Footscray with the inherited stories of the women in her family – stories of madness, survival and heartbreak. Original and brave, this is a girl’s own story that introduces an unforgettable voice and captures the experience of Asian immigrants to Australia.

My review

First, a bit of background to my reading of this book. I grew up in a part of Sydney where there were many people of Asian descent. Those who were my age had often either been born in Australia to parents who were recent immigrants, or had come to Australia as children. Many of my friends were of Asian descent, from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I tended to see the similarities between my friends and me – they were, after all, my friends – and I often did not understand why they reacted to certain things so differently, especially in relation to their interactions and relationships with their families.

In the years since high school, I have grown to understand much more. Unpolished Gem allowed me to take another leap in my understanding of some of my friends. At the very least, this means that if Ms Pung is writing for the wider Australian audience, to give them an insight into the life of a certain section of the Australian community, she has nailed it. (I am quite curious to know if she has nailed the audience within the section of the Australian community she is writing about.)

Ms Pung’s writing is impeccable.

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2012 Australian Women Writers Challenge Review: We of the Never Never by Mrs Aeneas Gunn

We of the Never Never by Jeannie Gunn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Blurb from Goodreads

An Australian classic. Depicts the enduring hardships of life in the Australian outback and the battles against sexist and racial prejudices.

My review

One of the things I tried to do for this challenge was to read a number of books I have been meaning to read for some time. We of the Never Never was one such book. Because it is an Australian classic from the early 20th century, I expected to find parts of it confronting, and in that, I was not disappointed.

A quick precis: the book is a memoir of the author’s first year on the Elsey, a station in the Northern Territory, several days’ journey (by the modes of transport then available) from Katherine. She is there because she has just married the Elsey’s manager, referred to in the book as “the Maluka” (this is later explained to be a name given to him by the Aboriginal people they have contact with and is, at least, so the author tells us, untranslateable). She is the only non-Aboriginal woman on the Elsey. She tells the story of her journey from Darwin to the Elsey early in the Wet season, and goes on to narrate other episodes, including staffing difficulties, the completion of the homestead and trips out on the station.

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Are you welcome in Sydney’s upmarket shops?

Apparently not, if you’re a man with an intellectual disability and a man who (I’m guessing, given his country of origin) happens to have black skin.

For once, the first part of the story is a pretty good summary:

AARON ODDIE was on an outing with his carer when they visited an upmarket city boutique. But staff at the Tag Heuer watch and jewellery store on King Street thought the pair looked suspicious and hit the hold-up alarm.

Three police cars raced to the store, and officers detained and searched Mr Oddie, who is intellectually disabled, and his social worker, Michael Lassanah.

Mr Lassanah had no chance to explain that he wanted to buy a watch; the men were accused of trying to rob the store.

”If you want to tell your side of the story,” one officer said, ”I think you should say it in court.” So Mr Lassanah did.

He and Mr Oddie sued the State of NSW and the owners of the Tag Heuer shop for false imprisonment and defamation over the incident in June 2008. A District Court judge, Judith Gibson, has awarded him $30,000 in damages, and Mr Oddie $40,000.

Good.

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Reasons not to vote for Tony – signal boost

caitlinate at The Dawn Chorus has a bonza (or something) collection of quotes from Tony Abbott, just to remind you of all the odious things he’s said over the years.

Here’s a sample:

Why isn’t the fact that 100,000 women choose to end their pregnancies regarded as a national tragedy approaching the scale (say) of Aboriginal life expectancy being 20 years less than that of the general community?
– From Tony Abbott’s speech to the Adelaide University Democratic Club ib 16 March 2004 (NB: link is a PDF; quote is at the top of page 6) (NB2: he put it in writing, so it’s not just something he said “in the heat of discussion” – rather, it must be taken to be an “absolutely calm, considered, prepared and scripted” remark!)

I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak
– From Q&A, 19 March 2009

Misogyny, racism, general douchery. What more could you want?

(yep, that’s sarcasm)

Well, even if you don’t think you want more, go read caitlinate’s post to remind yourself of how odious Tony Abbott really is.

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Consistency at work

As I understand it, the rationale for the much discussed burqa ban (recently instituted in France, but also considered elsewhere, as the linked posts and many, many others discuss) is to prevent people hiding their faces because hiding one’s face while talking in person inhibits communication.

That’s as may be. I accept that it is slightly off-putting to speak to someone when you can’t see hir face and in a situation where you would normally be able to see hir face. But I have two points to make. First we do speak to people all the time without being able to see their faces – on the telephone. This has not exactly caused a breakdown in society.*

Secondly, if you are concerned that the wearing of the burqa reduces your ability to communicate, why is the rational reaction to say “well you can’t come and see me at all?” That is the reaction of one Conservative MP in the UK.

Then again, I suppose that party is not known for logical or rational reactions when it comes to prejudice.

* Although having said that, research published in 2004 by researchers at Cornell (I couldn’t find any link to the actual paper, but the names of the researchers are Hancock, Ritchie and Thom-Santelli) did show that people were more likely to lie over the telephone than face-to-face or in an email. Still, my point holds (ie: no breakdown in society), especially since it’s not necessarily clear why people are more likely to lie over the telephone – it could be due to the difference in the psychological effect of someone’s actual presence as well as simply eye contact.

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An example of systemic racism

This makes me so angry!

I agree with a lot of what tigtog says in the linked post, and also Michael Brull’s post at Overland.

I did read through all of the reasons for sentence [NB: link is a pdf], and I have some further comments arising out of that.

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I can’t quite put my finger on it…

… but something about this article strikes me as racist.

It may be the general patronising tone.

It may be the “mystical native” type of sub-heading:

Aborigines have handed down songs and legends about their lands for generations. Today they form an unbroken link to a mythical past – and a key to the future

It may be the misunderstanding of what “Stolen Generations” means:

Australia, the recent movie with Nicole Kidman, dramatises what happened to the “stolen generation”, children born of Aboriginal mothers but fathered by white men, removed from their mothers and sent to missions. But full-blooded Aboriginal children were taken away from their families, too, and this is a story less well-known.

It may be the “only white man can save the Aboriginal past (and it only matters because white man wants to save it)” climax to the piece:

And there is a story, but it’s a story I can’t hear. Part of me wishes they would tell it, because I’m afraid otherwise it may be lost, and what if it is an ancient story? With roads, cars, alcohol, genocide, the destruction of a land and a group of peoples, I’m afraid it will all go away.

But whatever it is, there’s something about that article that strikes me as softly, subtly, dangerously racist.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

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