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Liked It “Synopsis: A Chinese family flees war and conflict in Vietnam and Cambodia for the Western suburbs of Melbourne. A young girl grows up Asian in Australia. |
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“Synopsis: A Chinese family flees war and conflict in Vietnam and Cambodia for the Western suburbs of Melbourne. A young girl grows up Asian in Australia.
Tim W wrote this review Thursday, September 17 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
My Take: I had a typically ‘old Australia’ childhood in country Queensland. Cricket, football, fishing, “Australia All Over” with Macca on a Sunday morning. It was great fun, but it wasn’t exactly a melting pot of cultural diversity. The pictures of the Queen of England in the school assembly hall didn’t really count as multi-culturalism in my book.
Since moving to Melbourne after university of course, things changed dramatically. It wasn’t long before my friendship group was teeming with those permanent fixtures of Collins St corporate law firms; over-achieving first generation Asian-Australians. In addition to dramatically improving my access to quality Yum Cha, I also managed to pick up a fiancée in the process so I feel like I’ve done pretty well from this cultural enlightenment.
So understandably, I was favourably inclined to enjoying Alice Pung’s ‘Unpolished Gem’. It had been recommended to me by a few of my Asian-Australian friends as strongly reflecting their own experiences of growing up in Australia and I was keen for an insight into a childhood experience that was very different to my own. They were right, it’s a lovely read.
Pung tells her family’s story with an elegant simplicity. Ironically enough for someone who’s edited a collection of stories titled “Growing up Asian in Australia”, I think Pung has a distinctly ‘old’ Australian voice – self-deprecating, laconic and matter of fact. Her writing is both observant and insightful without being introspective or overwrought.
The strength of this book is in the details. The book is packed with endearing little observations of immigrant life. I particularly liked I love how her family “wah”s at the prosperity in Australia and how her grandmother referred to Centrelink reverentially as “Father Government… like Father Christmas, as if he is a tangible benign white-bearded guru”. Equally amusing was her parents desire for her to study at “Mao-Bin U”. ‘Their pronunciation made the place sound like a shonky university in China for discarded communists.’
At times, Pung’s story is genuinely sad. The pressures on a young Chinese girl, whether growing up in Australia or in Asia, are not insignificant. Similarly, the strains on mother-daughter-grandmother relations of not just a generation gap, but also a growing cultural gulf are a source of much family tension. At times I just want to wrap her up and say “It’s all going to be ok! You’ll survive and even better- Eurasian kids are going to be the coolest people in the next generation”
Highlight:
My father’s idea of getting familiar with someone was to tell them war stories. He didn’t do it to sober them up or edify them. He did it to crack them up.
“This fish reminds me of the Pol Pot years when the starved, dead bodies floated up the river during the flood. I got the job of dragging them to higher, dryer land. We wrapped them up in a dry blanket and me and my mate grabbed on to each end. Every time we tripped, the blanket would get water-soaked and even heavier. Hah hah, so funny! And listen to this – my mate turns to me and says, “Hope you’re not going to be this heavy when it’s time for me to drag you”, and I say to him, “What do you mean when you drag me? I’m going to be the poor soul who will be dragging you!””
He finished by exhorting his guests to eat more fish.”
“In her debut memoir, Unpolished Gem, Alice Pung narrates the story of her family's settling in Australia. They arrive from Cambodia with nothing except the expectation of a new baby in a month's time. When the child is born, her father names her Alice because he thought Australia to be a wonderland. This is really the story of Alice, her mother, her grandmother and their assimilation into a culture so very different from their own.
Kaye G wrote this review Thursday, February 26 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Alice's mother and grandmother are still clinging to a lot of their Chinese heritage whereas Alice's only frame of reference is Australia. She recounts how difficult it is for her mother to acclimatize herself to the new country; learning English, conducting her jewelry business and just everyday life. Her grandmother seems to adapt more easily. Alice becomes the go- between to her mother and grandmother and this creates some tension at times. Alice feels like she is Chinese at home and Australian outside. Alice says the life of a Chinese woman is constantly, sighing, lying and dying and that she wants no part of it.Growing up amid two different cultures is not always easy.
Throughout the story, Alice was very attached to her grandmother and her story telling. Unfortunately, when her grandmother passed away, Alice lost her sense of youthful security and knowing exactly who she was while growing up and trying to find her proper place in the world. Alice felt that her grandmother had affirmed Alice's existence. During adolescence, Alice experienced a severe depression and extreme angst dealing with the realities of becoming a young woman. Her self esteem suffered as did her hopes for the future. How her parents thought she should conduct herself and their hopes for her were not quite the same as what Alice thought. This is normally the case between parents and children but when there are different cultural ideals it is harder to deal with.
This is where the story began to lose some of my interest. The writing seemed more rambling to me. In the beginning, there were a lot of humorous accounts of everday life and some wonderful flashback moments of life before emigration; how her parents met, their engagement and how they, along with Alice's grandmother and aunt had walked through several countries before they finally emigrated to Australia. The differences between the cultures was extremely interesting and the characterizations were very well done. It was very easy to imagine Alice's mother and grandmother. The last quarter of the book was not quite so engaging. I think I would have liked to have seen more of the back story but it was a book about blending in a new culture. Maybe Ms. Pung should consider a pre-quel because that would be an interesting stroy. Overall, it is still a good book, just not a great one. If you enjoy memoirs and cultural differences, you might like this one. 3***
”“Young Adult. Alice Pung's writing is down-to-earth but delicate. You can laugh at the situations but you can't ridicule the people. Instead, there's a lot to relate to. She has a gift for seeing to the very core of something,and connecting it to other things in her life. Part of the delicacy of her writing is her ability to link it all together. Clever, wry, witty and wonderful.
lyn l wrote this review Friday, January 9 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
If you liked this, you might also like Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah; Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta (which is fiction, whereas the first 2 titles mentioned are NF).”
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