Kylie Chan talks about Cultural Differences

Kylie Chan writes contemporary fantasy books, based on Chinese mythology. Here she talks about how cultural differences can get in the way of relationships. Go here to find out about her books.

I have to admit I was surprised when the subcontractor recommended to install our air conditioning system at the house turned out to be Chinese. Most Chinese, when they come to Australia, will grab citizenship as quickly as they can and then rush out and do something so difficult it is almost unattainable in China and Hong Kong – they’ll gain a University education in the subject of their choice.

A couple of close friends of mine, who I helped through the whole process of emigrating from Hong Kong to Australia, did this. When they arrived here, they were psychiatric nurses, both of them. ‘You have to be crazy to be a psych nurse,’ they often joked. The minute they could get citizenship, they took it, and went to University. He’s now a lawyer and she’s a dentist, careers completely unavailable to them in Hong Kong’s elitist higher education system.

So when the middle-aged Chinese air conditioning guy turned up with his team of burly young white Australian fitters, I enjoyed some conversations with him about my experiences being married to a Chinese for so many years and living in Hong Kong. We talked about places in Hong Kong, about the restaurants, and it turned out we’d lived not far from each other when we were both there.

It took a couple of days for him to finish the job, he fitted the whole house. On the afternoon of the second day, when he was nearly done, he came to me, slightly embarrassed and unsure. It was obvious he was going to ask me something and wasn’t sure of the reaction.

‘It’s my son’s girlfriend,’ he said. ‘Could you talk to her please? She calls me and my wife by our…’ He took a deep breath to share this awful news. ‘She calls us by our first names!’

‘This is Australia,’ I said. ‘You have to get used to the more casual way we do things here.’

‘But he’s talking about marrying her! How can we possibly have a daughter in law that calls us by our first names? She doesn’t show the right respect!’

… And I understood exactly what his problem was. Children in Chinese society are taught from a very early age to give all their elders a family title to indicate their respect. When they meet their relative, they “call” them, they’ll loudly say ‘Ah Poh’ (paternal grandmother) or ‘Ah Goong’ (paternal grandfather) or even ‘Lau Jeck’ (Maternal aunt who is older than my mother – yes the titles do go down to that sort of detail.) [1] The relative will then say ‘good boy/girl’ – maybe hand the child a sweet - and the conversation will continue as normal. All junior family members will “call” senior family members like this.

When I arrived in China with my husband, I was expected to do this and it was extremely difficult for me. Back home, if I waltzed into my parents’ house, and loudly said, ‘Mother!’ my mother would say, ‘What?’ I expected to call these people and have them grimace at me and say, ‘What do you want?’ After a while I became accustomed to it and it was something of a circus when the whole clan was in the house – my husband would stand next to me and prompt me with the family titles, and I would parrot them, one after the other. Everybody thought this was delightful.

So when the air conditioning guy asked me if I would talk to his daughter, I reluctantly accepted. I honestly thought that he and his wife should accept that things are done differently here. I was amused that he complained about her being too ‘liberated’ because she was a professional woman, when it’s quite normal for women in Hong Kong to own their own companies without being considered ‘liberated’. Maybe ‘liberation’ is more to do with a strong attitude.

He asked her to call me, and she did. I explained the whole ‘family title’ thing to her and she tried to understand.

‘So I just need to give them these family titles, and they won’t hate me any more?’ she said.

‘If you fold your hands in front of your lap, bow slightly, and call each of them by their family titles when you greet them, they will absolutely love you forever,’ I said.

‘It’s just so strange,’ she said. ‘My boyfriend never mentioned any of this, he doesn’t even seem to realize that they have a problem with it.’

‘If you ask him about it, he probably doesn’t.’

Two days later, the air conditioning guy called me. ‘Thank you!’ he said, full of delight. ‘She is so wonderful! My wife thinks she is marvellous, she wants to give her some gold!’ (This is symbolic of being accepted into the family as the daughter-in-law – the bride’s family, and the bride, are given solid 24K gold jewellery as payment for buying her. Really.) ‘You have changed her from being a rude problem to being a good daughter-in-law. We cannot thank you enough!’

Sometimes, I guess it’s the small things that make all the difference.

---

[1] All care but no responsibility. I think these are close to correct but they may be wildly inaccurate, it’s been more than 20 years since I did this myself.

Do you have favourite books which explore cultural differences? I've just been reading the Liaden books by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Last post I said I was trying to do a Mini Nano -- write 25K in a month. I'll probably get it done, but ...

But I feel like I'm juggling a hundred balls in the air and only just managing to catch them. Woops, there goes one.

There's the writing -- a new book, completely new, lots of research. It's an alternative history set in Australia. Don't want to say anything more about it but it excites me and that makes me glad to wake up in the morning.

But there are so many other things in my life ...

There's my family. I love them madly. Want to do the best by them. I just wish I had all the answers. Sometimes you have to let people go and do things, for them to find out if it works.

There's work -- a new job. I'm getting the hang of it now, enjoying the challenge, enjoying the other lecturers, enjoying the students. (and enjoying the regular money!).

There's volunteer work -- I'm setting up a national workshop for developing writers, for Romance Writers of Australia. I love the challenge and the people I'm working with are great.

Then there's the unexpected. A drunk ran into the back of my daughter's car. She wasn't hurt, but it meant sorting out insurance. The car got written off. Now we have to help her get a new car.

All of these things get in the way of the pure joy of writing. The photo I chose for this post reminds me of being a child and having the time to simply look at things and see how remarkable they are. There was an empty block of long grass on the way home from school. I was always looking for magic in the real world. I used to think the way that grass looked in the sun was magical. Now, I have to stop and make myself notice things.

I tell myself, this is just a high traffic time of life. In the next couple of years half of my six children will move out. One day it will just be my husband and I, pottering around.

Until that day, keep juggling ...

Is anyone else feeling as if they'd like the world to slow down?

NaNoWriMo Week One

12173 / 50000

So I've been Nanoing for a week now. I've managed to "rock the minimum" every day, which is quite a feat though mostly accomplished by fear (if I get behind I'm so never catching up). Towards the end of the week I've managed to eke out a 300-500 word lead, only just.

Word count posts are fascinating, aren't they?

Our local gang of reprobates/writers have put together a mighty schedule of near-daily meet ups, the idea being that we can all make one or two a week. So far I've managed to make one public session at the fish & chippery at the docks (at which the baby mostly behaved, hanging sleepily in her little pouch), one domestic session which is a minute's drive from my place, and another domestic session in my own house. I may not do nearly as well next week - am even considering blowing off my own hosting duties in order to shout 'hooray' at my daughter's athletic's carnival.

I was going to head out for writing purposes today but decided against it because the day was so hot, and some **** broke the left-hand mirror off my car last night when it was parked out the front. I'm still a new driver and couldn't quite get up the nerve to tackle the Derwent Bridge without being able to see out that particular mirror.

So I stayed home and did word wars with Kaia (in Sweden) and Hannah (in US) instead. For those unfamiliar with the technique, word wars can be done in person or online, and consists of shouting GO! at each other and writing like a maniac for 15 minutes then comparing wordcounts. The downside of doing this with Hannah is that she actually is a maniac and is perfectly capable of getting 800-1000 words in a war every single time. It's both demoralising and inspiring - you can't help trying to keep up, however impossible.

But hey. I've managed to write 12,000 words of a new novel in a week. I don't kid myself this would be possible at any other time of year. NANOWRIMO ROCKS.

If wordcounts really do fascinate you, you can keep track of my daily progress over at tansyrr.com - otherwise I'll see you back here next week, hopefully in one piece and with at least 24,000 words under my belt!

How is everyone else's Nano going? Post your wordcount below!

Mini Nano

Where would writers be without chocolate and coffee?


This month is Nano November -- write 50,000 words in a month. Tansy has taken up the challenge with a new born and a preschooler. She's inspired me.

But I'm not so brave. I've decided to to a mini-nano. I'm aiming for 25,000 words in a month. My excuses?

All 6 children (plus an extra) still at home. (Will they never leave? Perhaps my husband and I should run away from home?).

Started new job, teaching at Qantm College. (Have discovered the joys of marking assignments. And you thought it was hard to write them!).

Volunteered to be on the Romance Writers of Australia Management Committee, then suggested I organise an EnVision type workshop for them. Am currently collected quotes for accommodation and finalising figures. (Why do I do this to myself? My problem is that I like a challenge).

Can't think of any other excuses.

I'm actually looking forward to immersing myself in my latest book project.

Twas the Night Before Nano...

I Nano. Do you Nano too?

November 1 is the beginning of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). All around the world, tens of thousands (is it still only tens?) of people are gearing up to spend the next 30 days writing 50,000 words. That's 1667 words a day, every day.

The first time I heard about Nano, I thought it was insane. Later I was intrigued, but thought it was impractical. Then I grew impressed by people who had the bottle to do it.

Then I accidentally talked a friend of mine into doing it. Which meant I had to do it too. And, apparently, so did everyone we knew. Last November was a wild ride.

The most awesome thing about Nano is the sense of community. If you have people close by also participating, you can do write-ins, getting together at cafes or each other's places to write in company. Because you have to get so much done, you have to be strict - only small amounts of talking, using earbuds to shut out the world, you are here to WORK.

As someone who writes all year around, usually without other people across the table from me, it's just lovely.

If you don't have locals in your vicinity who are crazy and wonderful enough to join you, then there are online communities and forums. You'd be amazed at how inspiring it is to have someone there on IM shouting go! and then comparing word counts after 15 minutes of furious typing.

Last year I wasn't able to do 'proper' Nano, which means starting a new book fresh on 1 November (it still counts if you hit 50K and haven't finished the book yet, though the purest Nano experience is to be finished at 50) so I didn't register my "win". I started writing a few weeks early, and hit 69,000 on the 30th - just what I needed for my first draft of a pre-contracted novel. It later took another 6 weeks to polish that novel to submission level quality.

I thought that my book contracts and commitments to the Creature Court Trilogy meant that I would be too busy editing/revising to manage Nano this year, which made me unbelievably sad. But I've managed to get enough ahead of myself on drafting book 2, and finishing up edits for book 1, that I can justify taking November to draft the first 50K of book 3 before I go back and revise book 2. I'm delighted to be able to do this, because to be honest I have no idea what's going to happen in book 3, and it would be nice to find some of it out before I take another pass on book 2.

That, and NaNoWriMo is the most fun ever. For the next month I get to have writing open days at my house, hang out with friends, and drill 50,000 words into my laptop with a baby strapped to my chest. I'm bouncing even thinking about it.

If you're interested in knowing more, or signing up, you need to check out www.nanowrimo.org - if the site doesn't load, that's cos the servers have melted. Don't panic, it happens a lot at this time of year. Nano is... kinda popular. Kinda.

My in person group are writing for the second year running, and the other planned projects include a historical murder mystery, an Egyptian fantasy, a category romance, at least two novels based on life experiences from this year, and one classic No Plot, No Problem, which means she has no idea what she is going to write until she starts scribbling on November 1st.

Are you Nanoing this year? Would you ever consider it?

Love,
Tansy

VICAR OF MORBING VYLE as free download

Hi Edwina!

I'm very interested to hear your experience of turning a short story into a novel. I was going to be on a panel for that topic at Conflux, except that the panel got cancelled. Not because I've ever turned a short story into a novel in the past, but because I'm planning to do so. In fact, I've written the first 12k words, but it's a huge project and will take many years - and in the meanwhile, it's more urgent to write LIBERATOR, the sequel to WORLDSHAKER. But what I seemed to find in the writing and planning is that the novel keeps leaving the short story further and further behind. I hope this is a good thing(?)

I've been letting people know that my famous/notorious cult novel, THE VICAR OF MORBING VYLE, is now available as a free download. From responses since the day before yesterday (when it went up), a lot of people have been wanting to get hold of this book for a very long time (it was published in 1993 and has been out of print for probably 10 years.) It's bizarre, comic-macabre, gothic fantasy ... or something like that.

Cheers
Richard

Edwina Harvey talks about the Road to Publication for her YA Novel, The Whales's Tale.

Edwina with the cover artist, Elle Clarke.

My book, The Whale's Tale, started life as a short story called Restitution which was awarded an Honorary Mention (equal place 3rd) in the 1997 Mary Grant Bruce Awards for Children's Literature offered annually by the Victorian FAW. (Fellowship of Australian Writers.)

It was the second time I had placed in this prestigious award, having received another Honorary Mention for a story about dragons some years earlier.

To some degree, "Restitution" was influenced by my years working in a law library (at the University of NSW.) I've been interested in dolphins and whales for much longer than that, and saw the story as a way to address the injustice of continuing to hunt an endangered species to extinction by setting the story in a future where humans have discovered they can communicate with dolphins and whales, and where cetaceans have become dominant players in Earth politics and space travel.

While writing "Restitution", I had to keep a tight rein on the word count, and realised it wanted to be a much longer piece. When it did well in the MGB's I decided to "give the pony its head" and see what the story's "natural length" was.



I ended up with a novel-sized manuscript that then went through so many rewrites that I've lost count! Along the way the storyline shifted dramatically from a stodgy, serious piece to a more entertaining work that young readers will hopefully enjoy visiting.

I think turning points for the manuscript were getting a beta reader to tell me what was wrong with it. He was ruthless. I didn't like hearing a lot of what he had to say, but I didn't turn away from it either, I just absorbed it, and applied some of it. Deciding to invest in myself and my writing by paying a professional editor to edit my work was what bridged the gap between getting complimentary reject slips (nice, but they were still reject slips!)to getting an offer of publication.

So there it is, enter competitions, listen to your Beta readers and never give up, never surrender. Do you have a brave Beta reader, who gives you fearless feedback on your manuscript?

Edwina supports the Speculative Fiction genre by editing the Australian Bullsheet, an E-newsletter about the Australian fan and professional scene.