Writer

“I’m not suggesting these treatments were ineffective. But despite the litany of therapeutic approaches I’ve sampled, I know all of them have missed something crucial: my race, or more specifically, how the experience of being from a minority race intersects with my mental illness.”

“Australia is a multilingual country, with millions of people speaking hundreds of languages. Yet, we have a monolingual English mindset, which means many of our migrant languages are no longer spoken in just three generations, and we’re sometimes referred to as the ‘graveyard of languages’.”

“The Japanese terms for prostitution are particularly evocative. The most widely used word 売春 (pronounced ‘baishun’) is a combination of two kanji characters, the first meaning ‘to sell’ and the second meaning ‘spring’, as in the season. So, to sell youth, innocence, life’s promises to come.”

The first Japanese people to settle in Australia arrived in the late 19th century, yet the history of Japanese Australians remains mostly unknown. This article chronicles the creation of Nikkei Australia, a group of researchers, artists, cultural and community workers interested in the Japanese diaspora in Australia. Read here or contact me for copy of article

“The fact that the foreign language sonic elements or the mother’s broken English may be incomprehensible is not just about adding texture, but about a rich subtext that invites the listener to experience this docudrama as a form of intercultural theatre. Mei Mei is intelligent radio, intensely personal in tone yet conceptually grand in scope. It is the work of a generous producer.”

My dad was only 16 years old at the end of the war, yet he was willing to sacrifice himself for his country, his family. Surely that makes him hero, doesn’t it?

The massive migration of the past generation is not only changing Australia but reviving the need to find new ways to tell forgotten stories. Stories that are part of a shared, but often overlooked, cultural heritage of this country. Forgotten Stories will redefine what it means to be Australian in the twenty-first century.

In 1380, a young woman starved herself to death. Her denial of food was regarded as a form of asceticism, a way of fusing with Christ through shared suffering. In 2014, a young woman starves herself to death. But far from saintly regard, she’s seen as a victim of insidious cultural images promoting impossible thinness. Is it just historical context that separates these two cases?

“Sex sells, and sex with an orientalist twist sells very well indeed. This could explain the increasing popularity of orientalist novels with covers that feature fetishised body parts of Asian women: a ruby red close-up of painted lips, a thigh exposed by a cheongsam slit, a coyly averted gaze framed by silky hair.”