ranga Chinese Association

Finally some proof that it exists!

Well not really, just a photo from the Pakuranga Chinese Association's Christmas Party.

Anyway this will be my last post for this year.  Hope you all have a safe and merry Christmas and New Year.

Bus station killer jailed for 10 years

From The West

Convicted killer Patrick McMahon has been jailed for life with a minimum of 12 years for the murder of a complete stranger at Perth’s Wellington Street bus station two years ago.

McMahon, 24, was originally charged with wilful murder but was convicted last month by a Supreme Court jury of the lesser crime of murder.

The jury rejected his defence that he was insane at the time.

McMahon, homeless and suffering a mental illness was asking people for a cigarette as he wandered through the bus station on the night of December 27, 2007.

Suddenly he lunged at Japanese chef Junichi Uchiyama stabbing him twice in the neck.

In court today Justice Nicholas Hasluck described it as a brutal and unforgivable attack on an innocent bystander without any provocation or warning.

The judge added that while McMahon’s judgement may have been clouded he still had the mental capacity to know what he was doing.

The 12 year minimum was back dated to McMahon’s arrest in 2007 which means he could be freed in 10 years.

Asian Australian Blogs

They are divided into two sections.

The blogs in the first section deal with racial/cultural/identity issues on a regular basis:

Ed's Rant
Eurasian Sensation (half-Asian)
Hoa Pham
IceTea
Into Dawn's Forest
Maria Tran
Mellow Yellow (kiwi)
No Added MSG
paper planes
stephiepenguin (half-Asian)
The Banana Lounge
Thuy Linh Nguyen
Tom Cho


The second section is the full list and also includes blogs written by Asian Australians about general hobbies/topics like food, fashion and technology. There are a lot of these now, a lot more than I thought but they are harder to find as they don't stick out as being distinctly AA. They don't cover any racial/cultural/identity issues, or they don't post enough about them. Ideally it would be great for some of these bloggers to post more about identity, culture and race from an Asian Australian perspective, because sometimes it just seems oh so very quite in this part of the world.

A
A Thousand Miles
Ad astra, ad infinitum
Adam in ()
A Few of My Favourite Things   (food)
A Literati
all things d 
Amour. Devour. Embrace
Aussie Asians Pop Blog!

B
Babyminnieee 
Banana Tikka Masala (Food)
Boy Meets Book (Books)
Business Chic

C
Carla, Darling!
Caveat Lector
Chris lives here
Clarity - You had me at hello(Home-made jewellery, fashion, food)

Colour It In
Cross a Black Cat
Crunchy Tiger (Food)

D
Darren Ng #8 (for the Adelaide 36ers)(Sport)
Derrick Siu

E
Ed's Rant (Sketches, Personal)
Emily J Sun
emmakins888 
Escaping Emerald City (Acting)
Eurasian Sensation (half-Asian)

F
Finding Myself
flatnoseinchina

G
GenerallyJen
Grab Your Fork  (Food)

H
Hoa Pham

I
IceTea
immortali.se
Into Dawn's Forest

J
Jane Lee. Journalist
Jenius (Food)
Jingwen

K
Kapooka Baby
Kiwi's Spot
knowledge is crazy 

L
Lee's Korea Blog
Lemtek
Life of F Bi (Entrepreneur stuff)
Lone Female Photographer (Photography)

M
Maria Tran (Acting)
mayu kanamori: philosopher's photos
Mel: Hot or Not (Dining)
Mellow Yellow (kiwi) (Feminism)
Michael Aulia (Tech)
Mooiness
Mr Gadget (Tech)
My MND Journey 

N
Names Will Never Hurt Me
Night Time Brothers Present
Noodlies - Thang Ngo
NZ Born Chinese

O
Ooh, Look...
Oh My Soul

P
paper planes
Pink Winks

S
SakuraRyu
Sarah Cooks
sardonicsmile
SilverKottage 
Simplicity Me
Snippets of Life
Stay Tuned with Heidi Han 
stephiepenguin (half-Asian)

Steve-ism
Strong Coffee Please
Style Wilderness

T
tamingthewild
Tell Me.
The Banana Lounge
The Chronicles of Ms I-Hua
The Dorm Farm 
The Double Pump
The Koh Koh Nut
The Very Very Hungry Caterpillar
thecattylife
thorfinn
Through the Looking Glass
Thuy Linh Nguyen
Tom Cho

U
UCFOAD(A)L
Unique Schmuck
unwound floors

V
vegan about town
Viet-My Bui

W
weiwei says hello
words.

Y
yewenyi (half-Asian)
YongDDee
YU

The Legend of Billy Sing - Trailer

Well the trailer to The Legend of Billy Sing has been released and I must say I am very dissapointed.  I knew that they had cast a white actor for the role of Billy Sing and that the mini-series would be roughly based on Billy's life.  I had a suspicion that they would not mention his Chinese heritage.  And after watching the trailer, I can safely say the only thing Chinese about the Billy in this series is his last name, which is not a name immediately recognisable as being Chinese anyway.  In the trailer there is a scene where the whole family are at the table, they are all white, including the father.

Face it people, it seems one of our heroes has been white-washed.  This series is no Band of Brothers, a lot of the plot has been pulled out of nowhere.  I know it's for entertainment but the producers seem to have gone too far.  Too much bs for my liking.  Desecration is a word that comes to mind.

What's the matter, you want to make a series about his achievements and exploits but can't stand the fact that he has Chinese heritage?  So to overcome this you whitewash him and his family?

I can see a situation reminiscent of the movie Gallipoli.  Remember the scene where the British officers send the Australian troops to attack?  They were actually Australian officers.  Thing is, many Australians now take the movie version as fact.

Now the same thing will happen to the story of Billy Sing, many will take the mini-series as fact.

Gallipoli myth indeed.

See My detailed response to The Legend of Billy Sing casting controversy

Join the Asian ANZACs page. 


You may also like to read about Caleb Shang.

Brave soul honoured

A TEENAGE boy who died saving two friends has been recognised with a bravery award.

Darren Chhuon, 16, swam to the rescue of his friends at Edithvale beach in dangerous conditions on January 14.

The Springvale South teen was able to get his friends to safety but the conditions and exhaustion proved too much and he died at the scene.

Darren’s mother Dany Dy accepted the posthumous Royal Humane Society Bravery Award on his behalf at last week’s ceremony at Government House. “I’m very, very proud of him, but I always say I wish he was still alive.”

Darren’s best friend Kosing Tchong said: “I feel pleased Darren is being remembered here today as a hero, because that’s what he is”.

Darren Chhuon's mother Dany Dy (second from left) with Ausi Thai, Michael le, Susan Hong and Kosing Tchong.

 MordiallocChelseaLeader

Westpac botches runaway millionaire hunt

Westpac's runaway millionaires are a step closer to keeping the cash after the bank bungled an attempt to recover its losses through the Hong Kong courts.

Leo Gao fled New Zealand in May with partner Kara Hurring and her daughter Leena, after a banking error gave his business a $10 million overdraft.

They transferred about $6.7m before the mistake was discovered and Westpac clawed back less than half.

The failed legal action means Westpac's chances of recovering the remaining $3.8m appear to rest on New Zealand police convincing Chinese authorities to extradite the runaways.

Even then, Gao would probably have to agree to hand over the money as part of a deal to escape greater punishment, according to one insider.

The revelations emerged during a Herald on Sunday investigation into Westpac's efforts to recover the money.

In New Zealand, the bank has seized and sold Gao's property investments for below-market value to help recoup its losses and settled an employment dispute with the worker responsible for the banking error.

In Hong Kong, it took a pummelling in the courts after trying to recover money Gao passed through a casino in nearby Macau.

The bank lost the case and had to pay the casino's legal bills before one of its lawyers moved to distance themselves from courtroom manoeuvres.

Details of the case are contained in a legal judgment from the Hong Kong Court of First Instance.

The ruling, by Deputy High Court Judge Ian Carlson, described how Gao was "quick to take advantage" of the error.

Carlson said, according to reports he had read, Gao had transferred "ill-gotten funds" to "various accounts in Mainland China and Hong Kong".

His ruling revealed that Gao had help transferring the money from his brother Lei Gao and mother and business partner Huang Di Zhang.

Kara's sister Aroha joined them for the first leg of their exploits, telling friends she was drinking beer and loving the heat of Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China, before returning to New Zealand three weeks after the banking error.

Carlson said one of the accounts into which Gao deposited money was with Wynn International Marketing, a casino and resort operator with a casino in Macau.

The ruling reveals that Gao transferred only part of the missing millions to the casino - $658,643 - but is the only other party named in legal action by Westpac in the Hong Kong courts. That suggests the bank has no idea where to look for the rest.

Westpac's action against Wynn International Marketing was an attempt to extend High Court orders in New Zealand to freeze the assets of Gao's family.

Carlson initially granted Westpac permission and papers were served on the casino's account with the Dah Sing Bank, one of Asia's largest.

But the lack of detail in the order meant the bank froze the casino's entire account, not the $660,000 sought by Westpac.

Carlson said the casino claimed the move had caused "considerable losses" and "damaged its reputation".

He said the casino intended seeking compensation from Westpac and its lawyers - although the Herald on Sunday understands the matter was dropped after Westpac paid the casino's legal bills.

It also emerged the freezing order made in Hong Kong should not have been granted.

Carlson said a legal error had been made - Westpac had come to court with a freezing order from a New Zealand court when only a full court judgment would have been recognised.

He cancelled any authority the bank believed it had in Hong Kong, and warned Westpac's lawyers about trying to get the court to rule on matters on which it had no jurisdiction.

That prompted one of Westpac's lawyers to seek a special court memo stating he had nothing to do with the botched application.

A Hong Kong legal source said Westpac went after the first, and only, target it could find.

"The fraudsters, having got so lucky, decided they would go and have a little flutter in the casinos in Macau," said the insider.

"Money was then transferred to ... give them lines of credit with the casino.

"But Wynn had no notice they were doing this with money they had stolen until much later. If you turn up tomorrow at the casino with US$1m, they aren't going to ask you where you got it from. They'll just let you gamble.

"When Westpac discovered what had happened they saw these sums of money going into the casino's bank account. They then charged off and got all these injunctions and sought to enforce these orders in Hong Kong without standing back to think 'have I got any claim against the casino'."

The mistake had blunted Westpac's attempts to recover the cash. The source said it was telling there were no details of further attempts to recover the cash on any Hong Kong legal database.

 NZHerald

Victor Chang street name suggested

A submission has been made by a developer to rename the section of the street where pioneer cardiac surgeon Dr Victor Chang was slain.  The proposed rename is "Heart St", to recognise the legacy of Chang.  Currently the only tribute to Chang is a stone memorial at Clontarf, near his home.

There are hurdles as renaming only a section of the street may confuse emergency services.

The Mosman Daily

Green odyssey takes cyclist to Copenhagen

Kim Nguyen spent 16 months cycling from Brisbane to the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen to promote sustainable travel.  He has been able to see first hand the effects of climate change including severe flooding in south-east Asia, the spreading of the Gobi desert in Mongolia and dried up riverbeds in north-eastern China.  Nguyen travelled around 100 kms per day and would rest every fourth day.  Along the way he suffered injuries and his bike started falling apart after 6000kms and he did a few improvised repairs to last the remaining 12,000kms.

When he reached Europe, local cyclists rode with him to show their support.

In Copenhagen, he will attend an alternate climate change forum and meet various delegates including the Australian team.

He is already plannig to do the trip again.

For more details click here for the ABC report.
For Kim's Official Site click here.

Rape-murder monster Brendan Dennison found guilty

For the story of this crime click here.

Last week, Dennison pleaded guilty to 19 charges of holding the couple and two girls in their unit.  In addition to pleading guilty to the young woman's murder and recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm to her boyfriend, Dennison admitted 10 counts of raping the couple and four counts of detaining them and the other women for his own sexual gratification.  He also entered guilty pleas to robbing the other women of a total of $170 and threatening them with rape while he brandished a large kitchen knife.

He will be sentenced in March 2010.

Mark Chan to contest preselection for seat of Bennelong

Mark Chan, a senior manager with GE Capital will contest the seat of Bennelong against three of his Liberal Party colleagues.  Chan is a 25 year old Chinese Australian businessman and is the local party stalwart.  His Chinese background will be beneficial as there are many Chinese in the area but his age will probably work against him.  He will be viewed favourably as a future prospect.

The preselection will take place on December 16.  Chan's main rival will be former tennis ace John Alexander.

Bennelong was lost to Labor in the last election, with then Prime Minister John Howard losing to Maxine McKew.

Hungry Beast: No Asians on TV Segment

I hear that Hungry Beast aired a short segment on the lack of Asians on Australian TV recently.  Lawrence Leung makes a guest appearance too.  You can still catch it on iview.  Just follow the link here, select episode 10 and fast forward to the 8:00 minute mark.

Click here to go to the Hungry Beast iview page.

Nothing we didn't know already.

EDIT: Found the clip on the Hungry Beast site!

Asian Australians on Television 2009

I have been dwelling on making this post for far too long, so here it is. I will split the post into two and edit as required. The first part is a list of Asians on Australian TV for 2009.  I don't watch as much TV as I used to so there may be some roles and guest appearances that are not listed.  The second part is basically a list of defensive arguments that certain people may have regarding the lack of Asian Australians on Australian television. When I say white, I mean culturally white, so that is inclusive of Italians and Greeks.

First though, who was on TV in 2009? Let’s have a look at some of them. Note that this is not a personal attack on any of the actors as they’ve done quite well. If there is an attack it’s more of an attack on the roles offered:

Lawrence Leung - Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure
In each episode, Lawrence revisits aspects and ambitions of his childhood.

Pros – First Asian Australian to get their own show? (Lee Lin Chin’s Fashionistas does not count!) A lot of hilarious scenes and some that were cringe-worthy. Awesome Asian parents.

Cons – Weak Asian nerd stereotype, albeit a creatively, funny nerd.

Karen Pang - Play School
Pros - Still going strong
Cons - ...

Alan Kwong, Paul Amores – Beauty and the Geek Australia
When I heard about this show my first thought was “betcha there’s an Asian dude”. Boy did I get a surprise when they had not one but two! Both got knocked out in the first two eliminations, so predictable.

Pros – AM/WF couples :P

Cons – Weak Asian nerd stereotype. For those of you who like to point out that the other nerds were white so all’s good, get over yourselves. How many positive AA male role models are there on commercial TV? So why exactly are you defending white Australian TV? You like seeing your own people restricted to these types of roles or does this actually reflect how you view Asian males?

Poh Ling Yeow - Masterchef, Aliqua Mao - Australian Idol


Pros - Asian Australians on TV.  Reality TV is one area where Asian Australians have a chance to be themselves.

Cons - Not too sure about the ending of Masterchef, there were obviously other factors at play.


SBS Shows
Anh Do, Sam Pang, Luke Nguyen, Renee Lim, SBS News Crew

Pros – Asians/Asian Australians on TV

Cons – SBS

Hannah Wang – Rush TV ABC3
Hannah is a co-presenter on this action/sports show 4 da youf.

Pros – Asian Australian on TV

Cons – Asian females are more viewer(white) friendly for TV and are usually paired with a white male. Just have a look at America’s news channels. Whilst overall, having Hannah on the show is a big positive, let’s just wait and see whether this will be an increasing trend in Australia. Anna Choy (Big Breakfast, Big Arvo) also falls into this category.

Lucas Tang - Snake Tales
Lucas plays the role of Digby Nguyen, an exchange student that goes to the fictional town of Barren Barren to study.  The school is actually a snake park.

Pros - Asian (Asian Australian?) on TV

Cons - Foreigner stereotype with accent  to match

Jordan Rodrigues - Home and Away
Jordan plays the role of Jai Fernandez, who lost his family in the Boxing Day tsunami and comes to Summer Bay to join Miles with whom he is close. The character of Jai Fernandez was only created in response to Neighbours introducing an Asian character.

Jordan is leaving Home and Away to act in ABCs new show Dance Academy.

Pros – Quite a good role. Speaks with an Australian accent, not Asian-accented English, although this does not fit with the character profile.

Cons - Crazy character background. So your parents died in the Boxing Day tsunami and you came all the way across the seas to a shitty town in Australia to reconnect with some old white dude named Miles who is very friendly with you? Paedophile alert!!! How did you make it past Border Security? The notion of Asian Australians on Ramsay St or Summer Bay doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore does it? Also a stereotype of Asians being foreigners.

Hany Lee - Neighbours
Hany plays the role of Sunny Lee, a Korean exchange student. Sunny Lee was created by Executive Producer in response to claims that Neighbours was too white. Sunny’s last appearance was in November.

Pros – Asian Australian on Neighbours

Cons – What’s up with the weird ass hybrid Australian/Asian/American/wtf accent? Again, a stereotype of Asians being foreigners. There was quite a lot of negativity to Hany/Sunny being on Neighbours. There is even a I hate Sunny Facebook group (10,000+ members although the group seems to have disappeared now) and if you read many of the offensive posts before they are deleted by the mods, it’s easy to see that a lot of the crap is due to her being Asian. One of the more tame comments is “Go back to where you come from”, heard that before from somewhere?  Anyway, she's not on the show anymore so I guess that means Neighbours is back to an all white cast.

Hany Lee and Jordan Rodrigues were both born and raised in Australia and yet the roles that they play are those of foreigners. Hany was made to put on the accent so she was more convincing. I can just see it now, the casting agent telling her “Try and sound more like a gook”. Is it any wonder we don’t see many Asians on TV? When the few roles available are those where you have to de-Australianise yourself and act like a jackass, the frustration and disgust that so many AA actors must feel must make them question why this is all happening in the first place and for how much longer.

And a final one:

All Saints
The last Asian on this show was Ling-Hsueh Tang, in 2002 which is around seven years ago.

Cons -  A suburban hospital with no Asian doctors? No Asian male doctors?  What the f?  Remember the American show ER that was supposed to be based on a hospital in Chicago?  And in the 15 years of that show, there was only ever one Asian American doctor (played by Ming-Na), while in real life the ratio of Asian doctors to black/white was much, much higher.  If you don't know what I'm referring to click here: ER stands for Ethnic Ridiculousness.

Pros - The show is finally dead after 11 years of crappiness!!!


Television Ads
Woolworths Everyday Credit Card – Asian Australian Family
HBF – a few Asian Australian chicks
Beer Ad – South Asian speaking in a very stereotypical accent
Microsoft – Asian Australian guy, IT nerd

I do believe (as a general feeling as I didn't do a summary of the 08 AAs on TV) that we have seen more AAs on TV this year, but numbers alone shouldn't be a measure of the success of Asian Australian actors.  We need to look at their roles, and from above it's obvious a lot of them were based on stereotypes and misrepresentations.  The effeminate asian male, the asian foreigner, the submissive asian girl, all non-threatening characters.  Don't get too excited just yet, there is still a long way to go.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I'll tackle the arguments against having more Asians on Australian television.

Guilty plea to killing silence

A YOUNG woman has pleaded guilty to failing to report the killing of an overseas University of Tasmania student.

Jazmin Iris Haygarth, 18, of Moonah, appeared in the Supreme Court in Hobart today in relation to the death of 26-year-old Chinese woman Zhang '"Tina" Yu.

Haygarth pleaded guilty to failing to report the killing of Ms Yu in New Town between June 25 and June 30 this year.

Justice Helen Wood made a suppression order regarding the publication of the details of Haygarth's crime.

She will sentence Haygarth on Friday.

Last month John Edward Mollineaux, 44, received a six-month suspended jail term for the same offence.

Stavros Papadopoulos, 21, of New Town Rd, New Town, and Daniel Joseph Williams, 21, of Channel Highway, Kingston, have been charged with Ms Yu's murder.

Both have pleaded not guilty and are due to face court again in February.