Anh Do - Winner of Australian Literary Prize 2011

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? He learnt that he must always try as hard as he can so he can succecd

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 went to st vinnies and bought lots of books cheap as chips

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

rags

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?

If you meet a nice girl marry her

13.   Was Anh the victim of racism as he grew up? yes

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

Do you like Australia

My ideas on the story

This story is an emotional roller-coaster of sadness and regret with the main characters being a small 12yr old girl and an old man with just a few months to live.

This shows how the cliché saying "respect your elders" in in some cultures or people badly needing. She finds herself badly regretting that she ignored her grandfather after he had died this shows us that respecting our grandfathers and grandmothers we will learn valuable lessons that we can pass on to our family. In this way the world can learn and advance into the future in a positive way and this is shown in the book by “At the funeral, my sadness was overshadowed by a sense of regret. I had my grandfather the commonest of kindness”. This is also reflected by sometimes great sadness can inspire people to do wonderful things.

The world can be inspired by sadness and this helps to propel progress for the positive but sometimes for the negative. The story shows this as the author already regretting the refusal of kindness to her grandfather starts to care and learn Chinese and communicate with people in her home language. This is shown by “I’m not only willing but now I am able” this shows the transformation that great sadness can do to help people.

The Upside Down Year by Francis Lee

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?

The Upside Down Year by Francis Lee

The author is this story shows another side of the immigrant story from leaving Hong Kong to Arriving in Australia.

The author in this story shows the other side of the immigrant story that is not shown clearly in the media in Australian. While the media shows us the image of immigrant as being “boat people” that are leaving there country and forcefully putting themselves upon us. This story shows the immigrants as people that are looking for a better education to help them and their family. This is juxtaposed by the means that he used to enter the country.

This story also shows that not all people that enter the country illegally are “boat people” that corruption in the immigration office is a contribution to the fact that many people are entering the country illegally. This means that common media is showing the side of the story that makes Australian’s look like the people that are doing their best but in reality we are part of the problem.

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.

My First Kiss by Lian Low

My First Kiss by Lian Low

1. How does the author describe Malaysia in regards to showing affection? It was not allowed as showing affection in public was a criminal offence and would get you in trouble and being a homosexual it is even worse.

2. What happens to the author when she hits puberty? She loses her friendship with her male friends and starts to become shyer so she starts to retreat to the library and join the chess team and she start’s to have feelings for other girls.

3. What is the author’s experience at school when she first arrives to Melbourne? When she moves to Melbourne she become less interested in friends and spends her lunch time in the library and she has to do ESL even thou she has spoken English for 2 years before coming to Australian.

4. What is it that made the author feel that she wasn’t Australian even though she spoke English fluently?  She felt not Australian as everyone has asked her where she came from as soon as she started to speak

5. What else was it about the author that further alienated her from her peers? The reason that she feels like she is alienated is because she is queer so can’t say what she feels she is an immigrant so gets treated different and she has a weird group of accents.

6. What does the use of description like ‘crash hot’ do to the audience’s perception of the author? It shows that she is queer and is not just a little bit but a lot and if they weren’t perfect she wasn’t interested.

7. What opportunity does university give the author? What is it about university which would allow her to express herself more freely?  It gives her a chance to express herself as she really is instead of who she is pretending to be, there is people like her that has the same feelings as her.

8. What role does creativity play for the author? Why do you think that creativity would be so important to her? It allows her to express herself it is important as it allows herself to release what she feels.

Teenage Dreamers by Phillip Tang

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 help to create tension as you start to think that this father is nothing like a normal human and has a special power to predict death this gets the reader to expect this story to be about death.

2. What has happened to the author’s father as a result of his wife’s death? He became obsessed with Leslie Cheung after his wife died.

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 processes of unmasking is related to him coming to a point in realisation and the statement that “he is going to die” means that his sixth sense is starting again and that Leslie is going to die.

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? Is that he is just like a teenager how they dream and wish that there life was just like their favourite pop star or actor while trying to avoid things that destroy that dream of theirs.

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? They become close when he is sick in hospital this is ironic as when the father is sick and close to death is when the author started to connect with them.

2. How would you characterise the conversation that the author has with her parents?  It was a pathetic example of a conversation as nobody would work out much or connect with each other but if it was longer there would be a better chance of everyone learning.

3. What is it that worries the author most about these conversations? She has never told her parents that she loved them.

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 don’t really express their concern for her as they are really calling her child when this is not her name and it could be interpititted and simplifying her as with making her less important.

Lessons from my School Years by Ray Wing-Lun

Lessons from my School Years by Ray Wing-Lun

1. There is a stark contrast created in the opening of this story between what the narrator had been doing before entering school and what will be expected at school? What is this contrast and what does it immediately create in the story? She is expected to do the best at every thing but when she arrives she is discriminated and fails everything.

2. The author continues this theme of contrast at the start of the story. How does he do this in his description of his experience of Sydney’s North Shore? She says there is always nice as the house is nice and the job is doing great but the schools are failing

3. What was the father’s background in business before he opened the fruit shop? What has helped him become successful?  He was an immigrant but thru hard work he became a successful green grocer.

4. The narrator’s description of his father is complex. What makes the father a complex character?  The father is a complex character as he had no formal schooling but he has made a very successful business.

5. (91) How does the author describe his role in doing ‘things that counted’? he did things that will help him and his family instead of things that would not help everyone.

6. What experience does the author have at school while keeping to himself? What does he learn from this experience?  He learns to watch and listen and this he learns how tough some people can to other people.

7. How would you characterise the narrator’s tone in regards to the events that are occurring around him?  He is very negative as they were all negative to him and this has made him sad L

8. How does the narrator characterise the ways that one could ‘get the strap’ and ways that one could avoid it?  That it was the easiest thing in the world to get and the hardest thing in the world to avoid.

9. What event evokes a racist speech to the class by the teacher? Getting out of swimming lessons

10. What effect did the author’s experience with ‘Strap Happy Jack’ have on him? He was a very mean person that was more that happy to strap people

11. What was the one advantage school provided the author? it taught him to be passionate about things

12. What did the author do at his school? What was his motivation for doing it? What did he feel was lacking at school? He set up a workshop for troubled people and he felt good doing this.

13. What did the parents want their son to do at school? What did the author fear would happen by obeying his parents? They wanted him to be a doctor.

14. At school, what did the author learn about his own type of thinking and how to use it? He learnt that he was a very passionate person.

The Early Settlers

1. How does this title refer to two groups of ‘settlers’? Who are they? the two settlers are the white people and the second group is the Chinese settlers.

2. How is the first line of the poem successful at being ‘forceful’ regarding the Great-Grandfather’s presence in Australia? It tells the reader that the great grandfather arrived in this land.

3. What action are the ‘early settlers’ doing that gives them equally a strong presence? that when he arrived they were already in a entrenched position shows that when they arrived they were all ready in a strong reliable position.

4. How is the intention of the Great-Grandfather juxtaposed to the beliefs of the ‘early settlers’? he went there to farm some crops and live of the land but when the early white people came they came with the intention to conquer land and be rich.

tongue

5. What action does the Great-Grandfather do that ties him both to the ‘early settlers’ and to his own culture? it ties him in a he went there even if it was for different reasons but he went to Australia and took land and it ties with the original way as they when he swore he still said it in his old toungue

6. How does this short poem highlight the irony of the hatred that immigrants experience when they come to a 'settled' land like Australia? They say that they were taking them as terrorist as they were brining the devil while it is juaxopososied  as they are the more terrorist as they are competition