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The Lunar “Chinese” New Year: A New Beginning
When I was a kid, I celebrated the “Chinese New Year” in Malaysia with my family. When we moved back to Australia seven years after living in Asia, to my confusion I learnt that the “Lunar New Year” is often used to refer to the “Chinese New Year” in Melbourne. Both phrases are used interchangeably…
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The Asian Obsession With Taking Photos
Photos of food. Monuments. Flowers. Sunsets. You name it. When a good number of us see that something we don’t see too often, we pause. Whip out our camera phones. Snap a photo of it. Or two. Sometimes three or more just in case the first two turned out blurry. Then we upload the photos…
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Asian Australian Or Caucasian Australian, We’re All Australians
I was recently invited to give a talk at Kurunjang Secondary College on what it means to be “different”, an Asian Australian living in a predominantly white Australia. As I walked to the front of the Year 12 class on a crisp winter morning, I noticed about twenty odd Caucasian and Asian students staring back…
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The Outdated “Australian Dream” In A Multicultural Australia
The “Australian dream” is a longstanding marker that has always been used to describe the so-called successful Australian person. An Australian is said to live the “Australian dream” or the “Great Australian Dream” if they own a house with a backyard in the suburbs. Such a person who lives this dream is deemed a respected…
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Why Some Of Us Wear Shoes At Home
Recently, I fleshed out a few reasons why many Asians tend to leave their shoes at the door and go barefoot at home. In reality, some of us don’t share this love of taking our shoes off before going indoors. Some of us especially in the Western world don’t recoil in horror at the thought…
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What Exactly Is “Ethnic”? Is The Word “Ethnic” Relevant Anymore Today?
Do I see myself as “ethnic”? Someone of “ethnic background”? I’m a Chinese person living in Australia, so I should, shouldn’t I? Depending on where you are in the world, the definition of “ethnic” seems to vary slightly. The dictionary definition of “ethnic” actually forms a firm basis to think about this word. This concept.…
Mabel Kwong 