Anh Do - Winner of Australian Literary Prize 2011

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http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3278641.htm1.     

  Who did Anh’s father rescue from the concentration camp?

a)      His eldest son who would later become Young Australian of the Year

b)      His wife’s two brothers who had worked for the Australian military

c)       Two of the armed guards at the camp who were really employees of the Australian military and were in disguise.

2.       What was the length of the fishing boat in which they escaped and how many people were on it?

a)      40 metres long with 9 people

b)      9 metres long with 40 people

c)       20 metres long with 20 people

3.       What honour was Anh’s brother given in 2005?

a)      Australian Refugee of the Year

b)      Australian of the Year

c)       Young Australian of the Year

4.       What was the main lesson which Anh’s parents insisted that he learn after coming to Australia?

To value the luxury of living in Australia and to know how lucky they were to be here

5.       Why was Anh able to attend a prestigious school like St Aloyisius?

a)      He worked in a sweatshop to earn enough money to pay his fees

b)      He won a half scholarship

c)       St Aloyisius always takes in a certain number of refugees as part of their charity work

6.       Explain how Anh tried to overcome the problem of having no text books for his lessons.

He borrowed his friends textbooks in between classes. e.g. If his mate at english 2nd period and he had it first, he'd borrow his mates book 1st period and give it back to him. 

7.       Describe what he wore instead of the official sports uniform.

Instead of his school's official sports uniform, which his family couldn't afford, he often didn't do sport but when he did, he wore very old, bleached sport gear

8.       True or false:

a)      His mother earned less than $7 an hour as a cleaner in a hotel.  T   or  F

b)      At school, Anh was the class clown and this was when he knew he had a future as a comedian.    T   or   F

c)       He was often punished at school with a strap.    T   or   F

d)      No-one at school knew at the time that Anh and his family were poor.  T   or   F

e)      Anh’s father left the family when Anh was growing up.   T   or  F

9.       What did Anh study at University?

a)      Fine Arts, majoring in Drama

b)      Law

c)       Pure Mathematics

10.   What did Anh do for his mother when he was only 23 years old?

a)      Gave her money for a holiday back in Vietnam

b)      Arranged for her to come and see his first public performance as a comedian

c)       Bought her a house

11.   How old was Anh at the time of this interview?

a)      30

b)      33

c)       40

12.   What was the motto which Anh’s father taught his children to live by?

Work hard so you can give back to Australia

13.   Was Anh the victim of racism as he grew up? No he wasn't

14.   Write ONE extra question which you would like Adam to have asked Anh, and what do you think the answer would have been?

"I the lead-up to footy legends, what training did you undergo to get the build of a footy player?"

Anh's answer: "I had to train hard for 6 months to look like a real rugby players. It was hard work!"

The relative advantages of learning my language

The author recounts a story of the significance of heritage and how it came to be so important to her.

The main factors of this story that make it so significant all revolve around heritage - Language, country, ancestors and culture. Their importance are significant because they signify who we are. That is generally lost with modern social circles. For example, in an orthadox family, the children will stop going to church on Sunday mornings to sleep in or hang out with their friends. In Jewish families, the children will eat all meats and poultry simply not to look bad and in this story, Amy Choi decides, "there is no point to learning Chinese. We live in Australia, we go to Australian schools so we should only speak English." This quote is demonstrative of how she doesn't care about her heritage.

When we start doing that, we lose sight of who we are. In this story, Amy Choi starts to lose sight of who she is, but by an unexpected turn of events, she finds that, like in any culture, you need to know who you are. That is why this story is so significant and how all the stories from, Growing up Asian in Australia, represent a lot more than just lives of people growing up in Australia, it represents their struggles, their triumphs and their heritage - who they are and how they got to were they ended up. Heritage is important to acknowledge how hard our ancestors worked to get us better lives. We are all born unique, but we die copies. If we don't acknowledge that, if we don't take into account who we are, we're simply copies. That holds immense significance in all immigrant's lives and that is why this story is so important.

To conclude, heritage is vastly important to the lives of all immigrants and in a way others too. Just the same as Australia has Australia to remember their heritage, it's just as important for immigrants to remember what their ancestors sacrificed to get them out of a third world country and how important it is for immigrants to remember who they are.

The water buffalo by Thao Nguyen - why does it matter?

Read any story that we haven't read yet and write a review of the story and explain why it matters. Why should anyone care about the story/read it?

Cavs example: 
Ginseng Tea and a Pair of Thongs  by Haitha Lee

The author presents a stark portrayal of an immigrant family from Vietnam surviving the slums in an attempt to transition into their new lives.

What is most confronting about the story is the raw objective style that the author employs. This description of Em suffering from allergies, a relatively minor difficulty, exemplifies the authors tendency to exaggerate the pain felt in this family. 'Her dull eyes, the white no longer white, the black with yellow...' This is a haunting description of a group of people suffering through their new life. This challenges the cliched version of the immigrant experience that usually include a narrative of hard work and perseverance triumphing.

Continuing with this stark writing style is the brutal honesty the author employs. The description of Youngest Con 'abnormally curious about sex' and possessing a brain hat 'thinks of being a lady' gives access deep into the psyche of the immigrant. This honesty is again confronting. It challenges the cliched representation of immigrants as quiet and reserved inside their new worlds. Here we have a family full of struggle both externally and internally.

The importance of this story is that it removes the veneer of the immigrant experience. It doesn't beg for sympathy or admiration but rather attempts to show the suffering that the immigrant transition often brings. The result is that the reader is left jaw agape wondering how people chose to live and made it through such experiences.

The water buffalo by Thao Nguyen

The author writes a dramatic, metaphoric impression of the difficulty of the life of an immigrant coming from overseas and setting up his/her children to a better life. 

The importance of the story is that it holds much relevance in society. For example, Doctor Victor Chan's parents would've had to work incredibly hard for him to get his medical degree and he saved many lives. The importance of his life and work was dictated by how hard his parents worked to get him to where he ended up. "He became a working man. He had children and they graduated from medicine, pharmacy and computer science." This quote is demonstrative of how by his working hard, the father was able to get his children important jobs that hold heavy places in society and effect our lives. 

In conclusion the importance of this story is that without our parents working hard, not nearly as much would be achieved without them. They raise us, pay for our school fees, etc. The harder our parents work, the better our education, lifestyle, etc. and so we deduce the better the parents, the better the life of the child will be.

My First Kiss by Lian Low

1. How does the author describe Malaysia in regards to showing affection? The author describes Malaysia as a very anti-west/not-like-in-the-movies culture; no affection can be shown publicly, no heterosexual activity, etc. 

2. What happens to the author when she hits puberty? When the author hits puberty, she becomes more 'womanly' and can no longer be a tom boy. 

3. What is the author’s experience at school when she first arrives to Melbourne? The author's experience at school when she first arrived in Melbourne was that she was put in an ESL class (English second language class), despite the fact that she spoke English fluently her whole life. 

4. What is it that made the author feel that she wasn’t Australian even though she spoke English fluently? What it was that made the author feel un-Australian despite the fact that her English was good was her accent; a mixture of American television, stereotypical Australian and Malaysian. 

5. What else was it about the author that further alienated her from her peers? What alienated the author from her peers was her sexuality and her tom-boy childhood.  

6. What does the use of description like ‘crash hot’ do to the audience’s perception of the author? The use of description like 'crash hot' changes the audience's perception of the author by it demonstrating the author's antisocial habits when she was younger by not engaging in conversations like that one.  

7. What opportunity does university give the author? What is it about university which would allow her to express herself more freely? The opportunity university gives the author is to be expressive without having to hid. She isn't the only heterosexual in her uni so she can afford to expressive herself without the embarrassment and having to lock herself in her attic. 

8. What role does creativity play for the author? Why do you think that creativity would be so important to her? The role creativity plays for the author is dramatic. Creativity would be important to her because she is heterosexual and goes for women over me, but to be able to put her passion and her experience in her work is a huge deal for her because it makes her plays more expressive. 

Teenage Dreamers by Phillip Tang

1. What are the first two sentences of the story and how do they create a tension in the story? The first two sentences are, "My father had a sixth sense. He new when people would die." This creates tension by starting off the story with a dark topic: death. 

2. What has happened to the author’s father as a result of his wife’s death? After his wife's death, the author's father became obsessed with Leslie Cheung; a male singer.

3. How does the description of the father removing his hands from his face as ‘unmasked’ related to the seriousness of his following statement? The description of the father removing his hands from his 'unmasked' face is related to the seriousness of his following statement by masks being a burial element in Chinese culture and his next statement (Leslie Cheung will die next month) is one of death. 

4. Consider how the father lives his life and conducts himself and the other people in the theatre for the film the author and his father are watching. How does this relate to the title of the story? It relates to the title of the story by the theater fr the film that his father was watching being a dream; that those kind of happy endings don't really happen. 

Conversations with my Parents by Oanh Thi Tran

1. What is ironic about the way the author and the father become close? What has to happen to the father? The irony of how the father and son became close is that when they were healthy and young they weren't close but when the father became ill and sick Oanh then became close with him. 

2. How would you characterise the conversation that the author has with her parents? The conversation that the author has with her parents is very brief and confusing but also that Oanh doesn't know who she is talking to. 

3. What is it that worries the author most about these conversations? What worries the author most about the conversations is that she never gets to tell her parents she misses them or loves them, especially since she is far away. 

4. There is a gap between the author’s need to express feelings common in western countries and her family’s lack of desire to express their feelings verbally. How does the family still express their feelings for their child, just not verbally? They express their feelings by keeping regular contact with her. This shows that they still care even if they can't articulate it. 

The Early Settlers by Ken Chau

1. How does this title refer to two groups of ‘settlers’? Who are they? The settlers are the people who have immigrated form overseas. The two groups of settlers are the Europeans and the Asians. The technique used is a pun - using a word with multiple meanings i.e. hanging out with my mate bill owl is a hoot. This is also an example of juxtaposition. 
2. How is the first line of the poem successful at being ‘forceful’ regarding the Great-Grandfather’s presence in Australia? The first line of the poem is successful at being 'forceful' by it being representative of Asians arriving in Australia. It's said as a statement making it objective and of stronger meaning. 

3. What action are the ‘early settlers’ doing that gives them equally a strong presence? The Early settlers are growing corn and cabbage and tobacco, contributing to the fruit and cigarette industry, giving them a strong presence in Australia. 

4. How is the intention of the Great-Grandfather juxtaposed to the beliefs of the ‘early settlers’? Great-Grandfather's intentions of growing a tobacco farm is juxtaposed by his growing drugs being compared to a terrorist. 

5. What action does the Great-Grandfather do that ties him both to the ‘early settlers’ and to his own culture? He becomes a farmer. This ties himself to both the early settlers and his own culture by his old job in Asia probably being farming and the majority of early settlers being farmers. What Great-Grandfather does is call the others of the early fleet a fucking bastard and vice versa but both have relevance
6. How does this short poem highlight the irony of the hatred that immigrants experience when they come to a 'settled' land like Australia? The poem juxtaposes great-grandfather with a foreign devil because he and the early settlers may take over the land. This is ironic because aboriginals viewed the first fleet as foreign devils.