Growing up Asian in Australia

1. Growing up Asianin Australia Student example!!

2. Lessons from my school years • Plot • Ray is a Chinese man who was born in Australia. He grew up helping around his family’s fruit shop with his dad. He had a difficult time adjusting to the different customs, behaviours and expectations of his family and peers. Even though after some tough times at school he managed to become popular, he still didn’t feel like he was one of the pieces of the puzzle. In the end he finds that he just needed to feel like he was needed to achieve his greatness. Ray shows that school was the biggest lesson he has had in life in understanding his own identity and belonging.

3. Lessons from my school years • Identity and Belonging • Ray didn’t feel like he belonged in his family because he never was as good as his siblings. • Ray didn’t feel like he belonged at school because of the way he was treated by his teachers for being Chinese. • He felt the pressure from his mother to become a doctor even though that is not what he wanted from life, he aspired to be more like his dad. Although he didn’t quite know who he really was.

4. Lessons from my school years • Important quotes • “I always wanted to be strong and write as beautifully as my dad. I wanted to be the warm big-hearted man my dad was.” page 90 • “We all know these Chinese people don’t contribute to anything. They are worthless and shouldn’t be part of this school. They should all be sent back on a slow boat to China.” page 93 • “School, my great opportunity to find out about the world and to do things that mattered, had become a very bad dream that I could not understand or escape. I could not do anything to make it better.” page 94 • “I didn’t have discipline. I was stuck. I couldn’t do what a good Chinese boy should do.” page 95 • “I learned a lot in those school years. I learned enough to set me up for a lifetime of learning.” page 96

5. The embarrassment of the the gods • Plot • This Embarrassment of the Gods is based around the annual family Christmas party and how the big family all come together and the rituals they engage with every year. Xerxes is very familiar with the male members in his family and their obsession with sex and their penises as each uncle and his own father Enrique have named their genitals. The majority of the story involves the “Gonzalez men” and how he does not feel like one of them as he finds them too upfront and rude.

6. The embarrassment of the gods • Identity and Belonging • Fitting in a Group- The novel’s narrator, Xerxes, tells the story of his family from an outsiders perspective. He is not really a part of the male group in his family because he is yet to prove himself sexually and financially. As a result he feels excluded and unloved calling himself the “bastard son”. This fits in with identity and belonging because he has the wrong identity and personality to fit in and hence feels as if he doesn’t belong in his own family. • Sex as a form of identity. In this story the identity of the Gonzalez men revolves around their sexual affairs, relationships etc. Xerxes doesnt fit in with this, and the actions of his family make him question his identity and manhood.

7. The embarrassment of the gods • Important quotes • “New country, new expressions, I thought then. But same old values where the Gonzales blokes are concerned, I would come to realise.” page 209 • “You know how this family measures success – how much money you make and how many brats you produce” page 211 • “Being a scholar I guess is what makes me worthy of the Gonzales name.” page 214 • “They have always excluded me from their conversation because I have yet to demonstrate any prowess with either dick or dollars.” page 215

8. You can’t choose your memories • Plot • This story was told through the memories of Paul Ngyuen and his mother’s. He usually stayed and completed all his homework at his grandmother’s house until his mother picked him up after work. Paul never felt he had a good, loving relationship with his mother as she was a cold person and she was bought up the same way by her parents who were also successful. The relationship between his parents was tense as his mother had no respect for his father and they often argued. Paul’s father ended up dying while he and his mother were shopping. This death changed Paul’s identity as he no longer believed in God and felt like he had lost the only person in life who understood him. Paul faced hardship in identifying where he belonged as he was a gay Vietnamese doctor who was shunned by his mother because of this. She wanted him to be a successful Vietnamese doctor who married another successful Vietnamese and Paul felt like he would never meet her expectations.

9. You can’t choose your memories • Identity and Belonging • Ray never felt like he belonged to a family as his mother was never around and she did not have a good relationship with his father. • Paul changed once his father died as he realised he needed to find himself and be more open with his mother. • Once Paul had told his mother about his homosexuality she instantly rejected the idea telling him he is a liar who intentionally hurts her. This made Paul think about where he really belonged and how his identity was affecting others. • Paul realises at the end that there is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ life with which his mother is striving for. This makes him accept his own identiy and be proud of where he belongs in life.

10. You can’t choose your memories • Important quotes • “Money as love. I wanted a mother, not an ATM” page 297 • “As an adolescent, I remember our family time being very regimented, very segregated, almost like a prison” page 298 • “I was told to be strong. I was the man of the house now. You can’t tell a child not to mourn for his father” page 299 • “I don’t believe in God anymore” page 299 • “I have spent much time trying to define myself. This is what I have concluded. I am gay. I’m a gay Vietnamese doctor, the only child of two doctors. I am the son of two refugees who fought for a new perfect life, only to realise that perfection is unachievable no matter what continent you’re on” page 301

11. All 3 stories • Links • All main characters feel pressures from their parents. • All of the main characters feel not as good as their siblings/other family members. • All of the main characters see the major differences between their culture and the way of life in Australia.