I’ve just given a seminar paper for my doctorate in creative writing. As well as reading out a sample from the novel I am working on “The Lady of the Realm” I also discussed Vietnamese diasporic writing and how it is a form of resistance against Western stereotypes about Vietnam. Vietnam and Vietnamese people are often portrayed as exotic beautiful and mysterious, passive or like the yellow peril- a form of orientalism – by Western authors. I’d like to think that Vietnamese-Australian (and Vietnamese-American, Vietnamese-French etc) writers write against these stereotypes and portray Vietnamese characters in more sophisticated way. For instance in Silence I wanted to portray the strength and the diversity of Vietnamese Australian women’s lives- I did not want to portray the stereotype of a Vietnamese outworker (Ma works in an office).

I met up with Michelle Cahill from Mascara magazine another asian-australian literary journal. We are hoping to do a joint event with Asialink and UWS. We talked about Asian diasporic writing and promoting that as a global world literature rather than just Asian-Australian writing. Knowing that you are part of a global movement helps transcend boundaries and genres not only in writers minds but readers minds as well.

The anthology “The Perfume River” will be released by UWA Press this month and contains writings on Vietnam by Vietnamese diasporic writers including Nam Le, Vincent Lam, Chi Vu and myself. I hope that it does well.