First Asian AB returns next week - and all shows are free! Also a scriptwriting workshop.

The First Asian AB

Written and directed by Renee Liang. Starring Benjamin Teh and Paul Fagamalo with music by Robbie Ellis and lighting design by Sam Mence

October 29th – November 1^st

What would you do to represent?

Willy’s a homestay Asian student. Mook’s Samoan and he’s been here for ages. They’re best mates at Timaru High. But when Willy decides his dream is to try out for the All Blacks, mateship – and everything else – is up for grabs.

A comedy (mostly).

At breakneck pace, Ben Teh (The Bone Feeder, Odd Socks) and Paul Fagamalo (Pollyhood, Where We Once Belonged) capture multiple characters – including a Samoan aiga, a bored class of thirteen year olds, two entire rugby teams playing each other, and one sassy girl called George. Directed by Renee Liang with live music by Robbie Ellis and lighting design by Sam Mence. Running time 75 minutes, suitable ages 9-99. FREE (bookings recommended).

Dates & times:

Tue 29 Oct Te Tuhi Gallery, Pakuranga     11 am & 1.15 pm

Wed 30 Oct Te Tuhi Gallery, Pakuranga    1.15 pm

Thu 31 Oct Hawkins Theatre, Papakura      1.30 & 7.30 pm

Fri 1 Nov  Auckland Museum                   11 am & 1.15 pm

8^th show to be advised 

Booking: contact venues direct (details below) or go to www.firstasianab.com

Te Tuhi http://www.tetuhi.org.nz/ 09 577 0138, Hawkins Theatre http://www.hawkinstheatre.co.nz/ 09 297 7712, Auckland Museum http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/ 09 306 7048

Scriptwriting workshop

Date: Saturday, Nov 2

Time: 10 am – 2 pm

Cost $15

Location: Mangere Arts Centre, Corner Orly Ave and Bader Drive, Mangere Town Centre

Bookings Phone: (09) 262 5789, Email: mangereartscentre@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Ever thought of writing a script for film or theatre? Join playwright Renee Liang (The First Asian AB) and screenwriter Padma Akula for a half day workshop.

Perfect for beginners or those with some experience of writing in another genre.  Bring: pen, paper, your lunch (shops are also within easy walking distance) and a will to write! You'll leave with the start of a new short script for film, TV or the stage, tips and tricks to enter the industry, and lots of ideas and exercises to keep writing.  

Registration essential. $15 fee (payable in advance to reserve your place.) Limited to 15 participants.  15 years and over.

Yellow Fever? It's no joke

If you're in NZ, you will probably not have missed all the media coverage about the Len Brown affair.  I was asked at short notice to write about my response to the "sexual festishisation of Asian women" in relation to the story (um....) and it was published today. Slightly discomforting to find that the opinion piece which featured alongside it (supposedly a woman's take on the affair) was by Deborah Coddington of "Asian Angst" fame. Oh well, she said some things worth thinking about too.

Below is the full text of my article. It was cut from 700 to under 500 words to fit, but even 700 is really too few to tease out all the points. (There were also two versions of the beginning, which explains the discrepancy.)  I thought they did a reasonable job of preserving the main points. And at least they let me put one joke back in. 

**

I’ll admit it. My first reaction was one of annoyance. “Why him? Why her? And oh great, she’s Asian. Here we go again.”  But just like not all Asians are bad drivers, not all Asians are Geishas, Manchu girls, Peking Ducks or whatever smutty term is making the rounds.

But they’re jokes, right?  We’re all New Zealanders. Hell, my best mate is Asian. I eat out at Barilla Dumpling all the time.  As Robin Thicke might claim, if we’re proven non racists, then what’s wrong with a bit of fun, self-aware racism?

Try walking around in my skin for a week and you’ll find out soon enough. I’m a born and bred Aucklander.  Most of the time I feel pretty normal. But then something like the Len Brown affair hits the media and suddenly I feel exposed again.  I remember all the times I’ve had to fend off unwanted comments, ‘jokes’ or even advances. Most Asian women, and many men, will know exactly what I’m talking about.

The problem is that we are not stereotypes. We are not cartoons.  We are not viper-like ‘dragon mistresses’, nor are we little girl-women who can somehow be innocent and slutty at the same time. We are not Tiger Moms either. We are people. Individuals. Got that? And for the record, I don’t even know any martial arts.

Chinese people have been living in NZ since 1842.  That’s over 170 years of history.  But from the beginning, we’ve had image problems.  First there was ‘Yellow Peril’ – cue political cartoons depicting Chinese as deformed monsters (cartoons that resurface from time to time in contemporary format in our national papers.) Then we became the ‘model minority’ – quiet achievers, good at keeping our heads down and not making too much of fuss while contributing to the economy. It’s only recently that we have become more confident, seeking office as elected leaders, making art and films, writing books.  But it’s understandable that older Chinese in our community are still wary of ‘standing out too much.’  It’s on this background that you need to understand the reaction to Bevan Chuang’s actions.

There’s been a lot of anger, even shame.  That’s natural, of course.  Bevan is well known to many in our community. She not only represented us on the Ethnic People’s Advisory Panel, she’s also been highly visible at many public events, a natural networker. Due to her status as a ‘1.5 generation’ Kiwi Chinese and fluency in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, she’s been seen as able to bridge the gap. 

But Bevan is also just… herself. She’s frank and open about her relationship status, her love of burlesque, and often dresses sexily.  That’s just who she is.  Does she manipulate the Asian babe image? Perhaps.  But then, that’s just a natural reaction to a lifetime of people assuming things. We've all done it, right? Sometimes it’s just easier – and more fun- to go with the flow.

We all know how one person can influence a stereotype, for better or worse. There’s no telling the damage Bevan’s story might have done to other (young) (Asian) women and the conclusions certain uninformed, racist and chauvinistic people might now make about us as a group.  The fact that she strove to represent us, and played the ethnicity card to get into politics, only makes it worse.  But in the end she’s just a foolish person who has already acknowledged her mistakes. Her Asian-ness shouldn’t come into it.

The fact is, we can't blame Bevan or any of her predecessors (anyone remember Geeling Ng’s China Girl video?) for how society sees us. Just as it’s certain we have not heard the full story behind her behaviour, it’s certain that hers is not the only story we have to tell. The rabid public reaction is no reflection on Bevan, but rather a reflection of NZ society and how far we yet have to go. And so, for my fellow Asians reading this, I have a challenge: we can’t change our faces, but we can change the way people see us. Get out there. Do it. Tell your own story and be yourself.

The Power of a good story

Oh dear. My last post was in May...I have been seriously neglectful!  Been doing lots of medicine, and the job's been busy, and quite absorbing at times. There's also a charming but demanding fifteen month old who wears out her daddy during the day then demands booby as soon as she sees me in the afternoon. I wouldn't change it for anything.

But hooray. I HAVE been writing ... one new play, one substantial revision of an old script, and currently I'm directing The First Asian AB for its fourth season (we open in ten days as part of Auckland's Southside Festival.)  All in all there will be three productions of my plays in the next year, all going well, so lots of work ahead! and I have been very busy on the non-fiction writing front as well.  But not much poetry. I keep on promising myself that will change, especially as there's no better way to centre my thoughts and get a quick writing fix.

Anyway, on the topic of non-fiction, here's an article I was asked to write for Westpac's "Women of Influence" campaign.  Here's the link, and the full article pasted below.  Since I have copyright and all :)

**

When I was six I became a published author.  I wrote and illustrated my own book called Debie the Dodo, published it in a crayon-stained, stapled edition of one, and took it proudly home to show off.  It didn’t matter that (as my sister said) Debie was a girl’s name and my character was a boy, or that (as a classmate even more unkindly pointed out) dodos were extinct and anyway Debie looked like a duck. I was the creator. I had the final say.

Many years later, I worked as a doctor in Broken Hill, deep in the Australian outback. I was finishing the final part of my training as a paediatrician. I got a phone call to say that my boyfriend was dying – had died, suddenly – of a brain aneurysm. I flew to Sydney to watch them turn the machines off. I flew to Auckland for the funeral. And then, numbly, I flew back to Broken Hill to continue my work. The poetry came in a flood.  I filled up notebooks, then went to the pub. I found a microphone.  I let my grief and love pour out. I wanted to make a monument to him out of words. I wanted to say what I would never again have the chance to say.

Fast forward two years. I was now active on the Auckland performance poetry scene. I was writing poems – new poems. New love poems. Political poems. Identity poems. Suddenly, I had a lot to say. I remembered what my mother had told me, after I had already started Med school – “your grandfather thought there were too many doctors in the family, so he named you ‘Literary Blossom.’” I wrote a poem called ‘The Naming’, a fictionalised account. And with that, I fulfilled my grandfather’s prediction.

Someone wise once said, “We are the stories we tell about ourselves.”  Google that and you’ll soon see that not one, but many people have said this.  We are a walking anthology of the stories – great, inane, funny, sad – we carry, that are told about, by, or remembered by us. I remember a teenager I once mentored in South Auckland.  He was a gifted rapper and poet, but his rhymes aped the imported American gangland rubbish. Then something changed. He told me at the end that the best thing he learnt was that he could write about himself. I was stunned. It had never even occurred to me that some people might not be able to write about themselves.

Stories give us power.  If we can define ourselves by the stories we tell, we can also change our stories – and ourselves. And if we can tell stories about ourselves, we can also tell stories about our communities, our families, our countries – the stories that need to be told.

In my work with migrant women writers, I have come across many such stories.  Whether they expose harsh government injustice, reveal a character’s sexual orientation or bear witness to an act of love within a family, they record what needs to be recorded and out what needs to be outed.  In doing so they traverse geographic, cultural and language boundaries, empowering and creating communities. One person’s small act of writing their truths can open doors to conversation and new understanding.

Debie, my dodo, ended up having many adventures after I turned my first book into a series. I was lucky enough to know the power of creation at an early age. I hope others may also know this, and in so doing, they will tell the stories that need to be told. Stories that change things. Stories that eventually, change the world.

Tuesday Poem: Kawerua

waves,
     the curl-embrace
     warm wet
     inside of a baby's mouth

waves. a food-laden table
      on the beach,
      gathering whanau
      like bees

waves. the voices of the ancestors
     return
              again and again
              to speak to us

waves. "we are here!" we say
            "we are here!"
            "we are here!" three times

on the first day it rains
on the second, it's sunny.

the waves come to catch us
         play between our feet
                                           laughing

Tuesday Poem: How to peel a banana

How to peel a banana

Separating it from its bunch
sometimes cracks it open,
soft skin splitting to expose
pale, fragile innards.
But if it doesn't
hold firmly in your right hand.
With your left, pull across
and down, repeating
until each tender flap
surrenders to your fingers
Only then
             hold the flesh
gently
              to your lips.

How to peel a baby banana

Today I found them
    at the market, a dollar a bunch.
    They are small and plump,
    promising sweetness
    fat and sturdy.

You have never seen
    such a fruit before.
     You watch as I peel
     the tender, fragrant skin.
      You hold out your hand,
      open and close experimentally
      pluck at the lustrous whiteness
       tongue between lips.
      Finally, you take a bite. Squish and swallow.
                            Take the whole thing
                            and cram it into your mouth.


I have to thank Jo Emeney for running this exercise at the writing workshop we taught on Monday, "write a poem about a fruit starting 'how to'..."  It's broken a longish 'dry' spell I've had as a poet - I told myself it was because I was a mum and never had the time, but the real reason was that I never quite managed to find the time.  There's a subtle difference there.  As I tell my students, you can always find time for the important things, and with poetry, the wonderful thing is that it often forgives or even rewards having only a very short time to write.  So it was with this pair of poems - they appear here pretty much as I wrote them longhand into my exercise book.  Those who know me will know what 'banana' codes for.

On being a writer from another culture - article

Just a quick one from me as baby sleeps - have just read this article by Karen Lord on the Huffington Post.  I love how it 'illuminates' culture, and writing as a person from a culture (as we all are), but equating it to light - "Culture resembles light. It is only invisible in a vacuum (the deep darkness of space), and it reveals itself by illuminating whatever it touches (the brightness of dust motes in a ray of sunlight)."  It goes on to point out that stereotypes, while comforting, familiar and easy to lapse into (oh how I know that!), shortchanges by not revealing anything new.  And I love how it concludes by asking us as writers to choose between "a closed and clearly-labelled box or an open window" as a way of approaching our writing.

Pros and Cons of Xmas.

As I write this, the household is slumbering.  Sofia in her big girl's cot (she's 5 months; we moved her out of her bassinet a fortnight ago) and Mark, the tired dad, in our bed where I will join him 'soon' - after I have snatched my internet time, which I get these days in the manner of a drowning person thrusting their heads briefly above the surface.  Not to suggest I am drowning or that parenthood is in any way like drowning.... but the hours do seem to drain away as if I'm living in a strange sort of invisible whirlpool.

Perhaps other parents will recognise this feeling? I really do not know where all the time goes these days.  Every day I get up, do some breastfeeds, nappy changes, grab some food for myself and maybe a shower, gurgle at the baby to make her laugh.... and then it's already 5 pm and I haven't made that phone call I was going to make, or gone to the bank or whatever. Weird. It's like I'm the Time Lord but in reverse or something.

Anyway, I was going to explain why I don't like Xmas, but found my arguments unravelling in the process of construction. 
Here is a list of the things I like:
The special food and that stretched-belly feeling after too much turkey and chocolate.
Designing handmade cards (see above for this year's effort).
Singing old fashioned Xmas carols.
Smelling Xmas trees, even though I'd never buy a dying pine for my own lounge.
Getting excited about Xmas.
Watching others get excited about Xmas.
Xmas mass (occasionally).
Seeing family.

Here is a list of the things I don't like:
Xmas carols on repeat in malls.
Drunk or recently drunk Australians wearing ties with "Kiss me, I'm Santa" and/or flashing Xmas tree earrings. Especially when they are hospital staff at work.
Electronic life-size singing Santas with zombie bobbing heads (I once saw one in a children's ward without a head).
All those presents you 'must give' or 'must receive'.
Advertising that tries to play on people's guilt (what your kid will miss out on if you don't buy him/her X).
Seeing family.

I was assuming my list of 'don't likes' would be longer, but they pretty much balance each other out.  I have a confession to make: for many years I used to deliberately volunteer to work over Xmas, mostly because then I'd miss out on all the present-giving (but be able to catch up on the gluttony with the leftovers the next day.)  Unfortunately my in-laws are one of those families who do focus on the presents and the unwrapping, so that's what I've endured today, along with the gluttony and the lying around telling family stories, which I rather enjoy.

At least they don't make the poor kids do 'items' for an Xmas concert as my Hong Kong family used to do - being made to perform in front of grown ups loses its coolness after about the age of 2, but somehow the adults don't seem to realise this. ("Oh go on sing that cute song/do that little item/play the piano," they coo, then talk all the way through your blushing and self conscious performance. Oh, the scars.)

Anyway, now with a baby, Xmas takes on a new meaning. She's of an age where she doesn't, thankfully, understand that most confusing of constructions, Santa, or care about presents.  She likes to look at the summer flowers in rain. She's fascinated by the flashing lights on the Xmas tree, and the bright baubles she reaches her hand out for. The best part of a present is the wrapping paper. There's new food to taste and textures to feel, everyone around her is just a bit more manic, and she doesn't mind wearing a silly hat so long as she occasionally gets to close her eyes and get away from it all.  It's not so much wonder as a building of yet more experience.  And so, through her, I get to experience Xmas a different way. I think this way is OK.

New Kiwi Women Write Their Stories

Earlier this year I was invited by Auckland City Council to run a writing workshop series for migrant women. We ran four workshops (Introduction; Poetry; Prose; Performance and Editing) after which we put together a small book of the group's writing and then launched it at an afternoon tea in front of family and friends. It was a marvellous experience and I'm hoping the group will continue on as a writing group, as many of the writers were talented and need to be heard.

This afternoon the workshop series was featured on Radio NZ: