Category Archives: Culture

A discussion about what makes groups of people unique.

How to talk to your child about body parts and sex.

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Or rather, the title to this should be, “How I talk to Amanda about body parts and sex.”

As you well know, I’m more than prepared to answer any and every question Amanda might have. This dedicated and intense parenting is, I suppose, part and parcel of only having the one child. I’d much rather she get her information from a trusted source (ie. me) than her equally clueless peers, or worse still, in time to come, the internet.

This topic reared it’s innocuous head when a friend of mine posted a status update on facebook (yes, we live there half the time), about the awkwardness of explaining childbirth to her curious son. Her son and my daughter, even though they’ve yet to meet, living 4175 km away and continents apart, are the same age.

Reading the comments already there, it occurred to me that many parents, especially Asian, have the same problem of discussing genitals, procreation and childbirth with their offspring. In that regard, parents of my generation haven’t progressed all that far from our own parents’ generation. I commented, “I always wondered how a conversation like this would go with a boy, instead of a girl.”

My friend responded by asking me how my talk with Amanda has gone so far.

“Very well, ” I said. “I decided honesty is the best policy and have thereby named the ahem, third orifice, muff. So there is pe pe (pronounced pear pear) where we do pee pee from, bum bum where we do poo poo from and there is muff, between the two.”

Muff was the name my friend Nadia in Townsville taught me. Nadia once explained, “I don’t want my kids to think they came out with all the poo.” Which, as far as I’m concerned, is more traumatising than the discovery of a third orifice down there.

Let’s rewind to when Amanda was between 3 and 3 1/2 years old. Clue-y even then, she approached her father and me while we were in the middle of coitus. Ok, before you call child services, do know that no body parts of ours, save my head, was visible from under the thick blankets. The reason why we left the bedroom door open is so that Amanda wouldn’t be thrown into a panic by our sudden absence and hence trash at the door, spoiling whatever it is we were trying to do.

She neared my exposed head and what she said next told me that she and I will be having many long conversations: ” Is Papa putting a peddle in your bum?”

The body parts may be wrongly identified but what was interesting, and you’d have to agree with me, was her being able to grasp the concept, sight unseen, that something goes into something else. And no, we don’t expose her to pornographic films either. At the time, the only kids she ever played with were those her age – four and under – who went to Sunday school at church.

So later that year, I bought her a book with overlapping plastic slides to show the inside of the human body. I told her which organ was which and using the male and female figures, showed her how boys and girls, men and women, mummies and daddies, are built differently. She had been showering with either HRH or me from toddlerhood so this physical difference was something she was already familiar and comfortable with. There was no, “Eee ye…shame shame,” which many Chinese parents are fond of saying to their naked offspring when changing them; nothing to make Amanda think or feel that the naked human body is unseemly or disgusting. HRH allowed her to see him take a leak, or sit on the throne and I did likewise. HRH even said she should get used to it because she’ll have to change his diapers when he grows old.

When Amanda turned 5, I happened across Per Holm Knudsen’s “How Babies are Made”. I showed her the book and it led to a discussion about sex, love, baby-making.

“You don’t go making babies with people up and down the road,” I said. “Baby-making is only for mummies and daddies – grown-up, responsible, adults.”

Recently, I continued our conversation on the topic by showing Amanda “Conception to birth – visualised” by Alexander Tsiaras. Here it is, so you may check it out.

Contrary to promoting promiscuity or teenage pregnancy, research has found that discussing sex with your children to actually help reduce incidences of both.

Is race about genes or nurturing received in childhood?

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If you must blame someone for today’s post, blame Charlie Sheen. Before I go any further, let me state that I am a big fan of the former “2 and a Half Men” star despite his obvious personal dysfunction. So how is this his fault?

Hear me out: I was driving home from sending HRH to work this morning when  a radio host on Perth’s 94.5 said, quoting Charlie Sheen, “I don’t wake up feeling Latino. I’m a white guy in America.” Read more on http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/entertainment/2012/07/12/charlie-sheen-on-being-latino-never-part-my-life/#ixzz2USHQdGUe

In the interview with Univision News, Charlie Sheen went on to say that he isn’t ashamed of his background or running away from it, “But I was born in New York and grew up in Malibu.”

Having come across innumerable second and third generation migrants in the course of my travels around Australia, I’ve found this to be a common phenomenon, instead of the rarity non-migrants think it is. Before you start hurling apples at the likes of Charlie Sheen, calling them “traitors to the race”, consider what the main problem with being an ethnic minority in the West is: the lack of exposure to your own language and culture.

You’d be amazed to learn that this lack of exposure often starts at home. Sure, your parents can speak your so-called “mother tongue.” They do so to each other, relatives and same-race friends all the time. But do they speak it to you? I’ve found many parents speak English to their children but somehow expect these same children to be able to converse fluently in their mother tongues. Frankly, I’m guilty of this myself: I’m still hoping that one fine day, Amanda will wake up spouting the perfect phlegm-inducing Mandarin of mainlanders even though I draw a blank from her every time I ask her what she learned at Mandarin class.

Well, we all have our dreams. I look to my two sisters, whom I have made nary a mention of on this blog, out of respect for their privacy, to form some sort of conclusion as to whether race is in our genes or upbringing.

The fact is if you were to see the 3 of us coming down a street, you wouldn’t think we were related, much less the products of the same womb. You’d look at us and think, “Who are those people with Estella?”

My eldest sister, Rachel, a purchasing specialist residing just outside of London, looks much like her white father, in that she can pass off for being totally white. My second sister, Rebecca, a top-notch divorce lawyer in Cardiff, has Rachel’s lower face but our mother’s Chinese-sy eyes. Since both spent their formative years in Malaysia, both speak Malay and understand Cantonese. Rachel though, lives as a white person would, whilst Rebecca is very proud to be identified as half-Chinese. I judge neither for their choices as they went through hell growing up in an unevolved Malaysia during the 80s – rejected and vilified by Chinese, the targets of racism even among family, who have thankfully grown to see the error of their ways. Far be it for me, who has experienced no such vilification, to get on my high horse and insist they “honour their Chinese heritage.”

Amanda is another case altogether. Even if, as an adult, she were to feel more comfortable in the company of whites than her own kind or wind up marrying someone outside of our race, I’d still very much like for her to embrace her Chinese-ness – leaving out the inherent bigotry and xenophobia of course. I recognise that whether she does so or not depends very much on my current efforts to educate her and of her own acceptance or rejection of her identity. What I’ve discovered is that many second and third generation migrants do take an interest in their own language and culture once, and only if, they get pass that adolescent and early adulthood phase of proving they are “just like the white guy.”

As for Charlie, he’s welcome to call Rebecca for consultation and representation the next time he gets divorce, which if you ask me, is probably some time soon after he gets remarried. And should any of you need a fabulous, win-’em-all, divorce lawyer in the UK, or perhaps simply some advice on asset division and custody issues, just PM me for her contact details. Mention you read about her on By Estella Dot Com and she’ll give you a good discount.

Life in one of Australia’s wealthiest suburbs

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I’ll be honest: when I first moved from the 4101 to one of Australia’s wealthiest suburbs, I was decidedly underwhelmed. All the things I loved about my former life – proximity to a thriving arts and culture scene, easy access to a man-made beach, an abundance of lifestyle markets, quirky neighbours – were 4800 km away. In this new place, I knew no one and no one it seemed, had time to know me. Seated in a French café, I called one of my Brisbane girlfriends for company.

“It will get better, Stella,” said my girlfriend. “Really, it will. When I first moved to West End (4101) I thought people were snooty and unwelcoming too. But I’ve since made many friends here. Life will get better. You’ll see it will.”

There was nothing I could do about my predicament so for my sake, I hoped my girlfriend was right. I went to a morning tea hosted by the parent body of Amanda’s school for parents such as myself, new to the schooling community. The principal took 10 minutes out of his busy schedule to give us all a warm welcome.

He told us of the school’s upcoming centenary and how our children would benefit from the many programmes the school has to offer. “I guarantee you that if your child stays here for 2 or 3 years, he or she will be impacted positively for life. Misbehaviour warranting disciplinary action is hardly an issue here – most of our students come from good homes – you’ll realise the importance of that as your child gets older, when his or her behaviour and choices are influenced by those he or she mixes with, and the vast majority (of our students) will go on to university.”

The claim about university might seem like a stretch in any other part of Australia, especially for a public school, but in our suburb, it is simply a way of life. It is the natural progression for children of highly educated parents, whose median household income is estimated to be well above the $150k pa mark. One suspects that but for the impoverished University students who also make up the demographic, and are thus included in the calculation of household income, the average would be significantly higher. It stands to reason, these are households that can and do see the benefit of proper schooling.

But just how does this translate into day-to-day life?

For one, even if the time-poor adults are a bit hard to get to know, the children have the most impeccable manners. There was once when Amanda and I turned up for school just as the morning bell was about to go. Most of the “good hooks” (read: height appropriate for little people) for hanging school bags had been taken and we were down to the last “good hook” available. Just then I noticed one of Amanda’s classmates standing there with his bag, it would seem, contemplating the last “good hook.”

To my surprise, he said to me (Me, a full grown adult!), “After you.”

“Are you sure?” I said to this seemingly very confident and gentlemanly little person. “It’s the last good hook.”

“Yes, please go ahead,” he said.

“But what will you use then?” I asked.

He pointed to a higher hook, which he obviously could not reach!

“Do you need a hand with your bag then?” I asked.

He nodded and said thank you after I’d put his into place.

When I asked Amanda how she liked school weeks later, she said, “It’s been good. No one has threatened me here, yet.”

“Is anyone mean to you?”

“No one is mean at all. They’ve all been very nice.”

I was going to ask her if any of her schoolmates have gone around shooting expletives, but it seems that in this land for whom none has heard of “gentle parenting” and the like, such a question is more than redundant. For the rest of Australia, for whom wealth is equated with undeserved privilege, such a uniformed display of good breeding is usually unheard of. Outside of suburbs such as mine, the common belief is that freedom of speech and choice is a God-given right, welfare is a basic entitlement, and people who pay shit-loads of tax are the unfeeling, calculative bastards known as the “idle rich.” Few see that in many cases these are simply ordinary people who have worked hard and made many right, if highly conventional, choices.

Take NAPLAN for instance; while parents right around the country are actively deriding the series of tests for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, many mothers in this suburb have bought their children NAPLAN-style practise test workbooks. They don’t say NAPLAN is backward or that it stifles their children. They don’t spout any of the common arguments against the exercise. Instead, we all compare whose kid had done the most pages, what books to buy next, when the next available workbook sale is going to be; all this, even when most children are bound for elite private schools and university thereafter.

Conversely, one might contend that it is precisely because of this behaviour, not usually associated with Australian laissez faire parenting, that the children are going where they are going. The rest of Australia may pooh-pooh at this, calling the children a host of unflattering names synonymous with “robot”, but due to the high level of conformity among inhabitants, welfare is almost nonexistent, crime is low to nonexistent, academic achievement is consistently high, incomes are well above the national average. If nothing else, the suburb makes a good case for a return to conventional values.

Three and a half months on, I am no closer to the life I once led, but as much of this post attests, have come to appreciate the many positives of living here – chief of which is Amanda’s remarkable improvement at school. If you had asked me a year ago what I thought my daughter’s chances of getting into medicine is, I’d would have said it depends on how hard she’s willing to work. She wasn’t at all hard working. I’d also have been the first to say, “My child’s not brilliant.”

We were consistently late to school; she often didn’t finish all the exercises doled out during a normal school day. This year we’ve been consistently early because she’s been racing me out the door each morning. She finishes most of the exercises at school because everyone around her does so too. Rather than report on how well her classmates are doing, Amanda’s telling me how she’s been commended for her efforts and achievement. There’s even a spark of hope in this old heart of mine that she might go on to land a scholarship in one of those elite private schools – something that if you’d ask me about a year earlier, I’d have said is totally impossible.

 

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The magic of “Guanxi”: defining networks beyond race.

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I am very excited about 2 things: one, after a 10 year belly crawl through surgical training, HRH will be convocating this May in Auckland, having passed exams for Fellowship to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons almost a year ago. Two, one of my closest friends, F, will be coming with her family to stay with me for a week, upon my return from Auckland.

F, is a very private person, so I can’t disclose more identifying information, but suffice to say we have a close friendship that has defied geographical and cultural boundaries. F is a first-generation, born and bred Aussie, but unlike many, she possesses a deep knowledge of her “white” roots. I appreciate this about her; I particularly like people cognisant of their ethnic backgrounds because it seems the more that they do, the less threatened they feel about apparent and perceived differences between us.

Overwhelmingly, it is true what a cousin of mine said in response to a post I wrote much earlier about being the only Asian among whites: if you have interests in common with the other person, it doesn’t really matter what colour they are. It’s when you don’t that relationships become problematic.

F and I both love books and I have always had the greatest admiration for her grey matter. She can say to me things I’d consider rather insensitive coming from another “white” Australian simply because we know each other well and I know she means no offence. In most instances, she just wants me to give some thought to her comments and respond, as she knows I will, in an honest and forthright fashion. Being exceedingly RATIONAL, her ego isn’t tied to my agreement or disagreement. Take for instance this conversation we had at the end of 2010.

Kevin Rudd’s confidential talks with Hillary Clinton regarding China had just became public knowledge and I was so incensed by what I read in the papers, I wrote to Brisbane’s Courier Mail, after which, of course, I told F.

“What did you do that for, Estella?” asked F, seemingly angry with me. “Politics is very dirty and politicians are very dirty people. You don’t go near them with a 10 foot pole.”

Coming from Malaysia, I am in complete agreement with that.

“Yes, but in his capacity as Foreign Minister, he should never have said that,” I went. “I hate how white people think they have the right to determine the rules and yet preach the benefits of democracy.”

I can’t quite remember what else we said but F replied, “Then I can say that the only people to gain from the rise of China are the sons (and daughters) of China.”

“That’s not true. Chinese are very dog eat dog. Others might think we’ll benefit our kind, but that’s not the way Chinese operate.”

Any real Chinese person will know what I’m talking about. It’s the “guanxi” or personal networks that determine who’s in and who’s out; it’s not race-reliant, it’s relationship reliant. Like I consider F to be in my “guanxi”, even though there isn’t the remotest possibility we ever came from the same family tree. For anyone who’s interested in knowing, my “guanxi” is made up of family, former schoolmates, former university mates, mums and dads from my daughter’s school, some of HRH’s university mates, and some of HRH’s former colleagues.

Having said that, unlike most Chinese who will walk pass you without the slightest hint of a smile if unacquainted, I am friendly to strangers. I smile and chat with them when queueing up for coffee, waiting for the bus or abroad a long flight to somewhere. But that’s how I am. F and I are very different persons but our relationship works because we have mutual respect. We also have a language which, in my entire “guanxi”, only she and I speak: astrology.

As example of this is when F expounded her findings on the solar eclipse which coincided with Julia Gillard usurping Kevin Rudd. Neither of us were all that interested in the event, but we both marvelled at astrology’s ability to predict such happenings. Similarly, when Kevin Rudd challenged Julia Gillard for the top job, and I cast a chart to ask the outcome to that (my chart said he’d not have the support of those under him),  F and I were more interested in the accuracy of astrology (or my ability to read charts at any rate) than we were about any actual outcome. You could say that we’re nerds and like nerds everywhere, “guanxi” is based on mental affinity with one another instead of superficialities like outer appearances.

Other than initiating me into the world of astrology, F has taught me to say “I love you” in a host of European languages (I still know it in French and German), shared with me a variety of dishes her mother brought with her from the old country, lectured me at length on the differences between Europeans, which I’ve found rather eye-opening. Before F, I used to think that all Europeans are the same, as in everyone is “white”, but thanks to her, I can even make educated guesses about where a person is from by looking at him or her.

What I’m straining to say is that F and I have never shied away from the topic of race for fear of alienating each other or allowed it define our relationship any more than 2 people of the same ethnicity would. We are different in obvious ways, and similar unobvious ways, but such is the nature of relationships with people in our “guanxi” that over time, we notice more of the latter than former. Over time, what was once the opening line between two people, becomes a footnote in a long, comfortable and mutually satisfying relationship.

Tiger’s second cousin parenting.

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I chuckle whenever my Aussie friends call me a “Tiger Mum”, in reference to what they think is some version of Amy Chua’s method of parenting, as outlined in her famous, if polarising, book, “Battle Hymm  of the Tiger Mother.” It’s a book most Chinese mothers have never read because her methods, as far as we’re concerned, are hardly revelatory.

Compared to my own mother, I’m no tiger. I’m more of a regular house cat. Raised by a real Tiger Mum, the sort that comments on my (normal) weight as an adult, I’ve always wanted to have the sort of friendship with my child, I’ve only discovered as an adult, with my own mother. But as Dr. Phil, who I’m much a fan of, says, “It’s your job to be a parent, not a friend.”

I don’t need to score brownie points on the playground for being the coolest parent around. I am Amanda’s mother and that’s all there is to that. She and I will have plenty of time in the future to be girlfriends, but for now, my task is to raise a well-balanced, contributing member of society.

“How about happy?” you ask. “Don’t you want your child to be happy?”

Well, I have had teachers tell me, without any prompting, Amanda is the happiest child they know. She can break into song and dance at the drop of a hat.

“How about creative?” you also ask.

You should have seen my $5000 Italian-made couch before I wiped it down with JIF and sold it off to a friend of a friend for a mere $200; she not only drew all over it, on our toilet wall, while sitting on the throne, she drew herself a birthday cake, to which she stuck a drawing of another birthday cake, complete with candles.

Hence, from where I stand, it’s an absolute fallacy that children raised by strict parents aren’t happy or creative. As I’ve said to a Chinese friend, who completely agrees, “Happiness isn’t coming last in class or stretching your hands out to ask your parents, friends or the government for money. It’s about having choices in life.”

I respect other parents’ rights to raise their children however they want, but there’s no danger of me joining hippies who allow their children to decide if they want to be vaccinated or schooled. You also won’t see me on xenophobic current affairs programmes complaining bitterly about other race children taking all the places at Australia’s top schools because if achievement were all about smarts (an insinuation that those who work hard mustn’t be smart) as many Aussies (and some Asians) seem to think it should be, then we’d have the equivalent of Stephen Hawking governing the country, instead of whoever we have.

No, folks, as a Tiger Mum’s second cousin, I tell my child it’s all about HARD WORK. At our house, we don’t praise Amanda every time she does her homework or reads a book. It’s expected that she does these things. It’s also expected that she apply herself to school. As her father explained to her last year, “You need to be in the top 1% to go to medical school like me. Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head.

“Out of 100 children, you have to be number 1. How many do you have in your class?”

“24,” I filled in for her. “There are 4 classes. Some have 24, others have 25.”

“Right. But if you only put in the same amount of work everyone else does, how do you expect to be better than them?”

Amanda doesn’t have to do medicine, but if she can get in, she can do just about any university course she so desires. I reiterate my earlier point: happiness is about choices.

As a Singaporean friend of mine who completed 4 degrees in 7 years, while working full-time, once told me, “It’s not about how smart you are. It’s what you do with your smarts.”

Being smart is an inherited quality, not one we have control over, or can improve on. Research has shown we have an IQ of between 10 and 15 points of our closest relatives. Simply put, if your parents are not Einstein, it is unlikely you will be either.

At any rate, I don’t put much currency on Amanda being smart, although since she’s already doing Year 5 work in Year 3, you might contend that she is. For her 8th birthday, HRH and I presented her with a 288 page NAPLAN work book, expecting her to finish it in a month (because that’s what we ourselves would do), and when she finished it 6 weeks after we bought it, I simply took to writing out 50 questions on a single sheet of paper for her to do, then tiring of that, I bought her NAPLAN Year 5 books instead. She’s been cheerfully doing them, oblivious to the titles that suggest she might not be able to.

 

Q & A with a Humanist.

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The firestorm of comments on By Estella Dot Com’s facebook page resulting from yesterday’s post has caused me to think critically about the objectives of my writing. Summarily, one reader, SL,  accused me of propagating nonsense because worse things happen to cows. SL claims to be an animal rights advocate. I told her I love animals but am not their champion. Unlike her, I haven’t given up on HUMANITY; I believe much harmony can be achieved across the mosaic of races that make up the face of humanity through OPEN and HONEST dialogue. This is what www.byestella.com is all about. This is what I am about. I write FOR people interested in people.

For once I will be both interviewee and interviewer. I conduct many impromptu interviews to write the stories I do, but it’s time I sat in the hot seat. Based on my heated exchange with SL, I feel the questions below need answering:

1) So why is your subject matter humans? Why not animals?

Obviously I am human. I embrace every aspect of being human – be it challenges of  finding fulfilment and overcoming frustrations, or making myself heard amongst a din of voices.  My special interest is human adaptation and environmental transplantation. Put simply: I’m a migrant from a long line of migrants. I want to know how people like myself can make an alien environment, home.

2) You write about home in many of your stories. Do you not think some might say your writings are based entirely on your own experiences?

They most certainly are based on my own experiences. All literary works are, to a large extent, biographical. The difference with a blog is that I openly and publicly stake an ownership to all opinions expressed. I make myself a lightning rod to public opinion instead of hiding behind a facade of made-up characters.

3) Wouldn’t it be better to lead a QUIET content life since you have THE MEANS to do so?

I believe privilege entails certain responsibilities. Having been raised in an environment in which racism is rife, and discovering ethnic and cultural heritage through unusual means as an adult, issues relating to the discrimination of people based on skincolour really irk me. For better or worse, multi-culturalism is the way of the future. To know what sort of a future this is, it doesn’t help to bury our heads in the sand and pretend there are no issues arising from the mingling of people. There are issues and there will always be.

Here’s a quote by Martin Niemöller which expresses most aptly why I speak out:

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

4) But aren’t these generalisations though? Why can’t people all just get along?

Individuals may be as infinitely varied as the nuances of shades on a colour wheel, but in groups of people with the same background and upbringing, certain observable characteristics emerge. Hence when people tell me my observations are generalisations, I respond by telling them that generalisations are so called because they apply to an identifiable group of people. Are we all 100% different from each other? No. But the amount of difference is enough to cause deep-seated mistrust and make for testy relationships.

5) And you believe speaking about racial issues to be the key to overcoming that?

Certainly peaceful co-existence cannot exist in a vacuum of communication. For us to empathise with someone very different from ourselves, we must first understand them, and we cannot understand them unless there is dialogue. Many Asians are not in the habit of speaking out or up for themselves. Through my writings, I allow the western reader to know what and who we are. I’ve been told I give my fellow Asians abroad a sense of community; it’s a bond forged through the shared experience of being a perpetual visitor in someone else’s land.

6) Why do you say you’re a visitor? Aren’t you already home?

I once considered Malaysia my home but I was often told to “balik tong san” (go back to China) even though my family has been there since the days of Hang Li Po, the 1500s. I consider Australia my home, but as recently as yesterday, was told by SL, a white Australian, preaching tolerance and harmony, I can “go back to where I came from” if unhappy with the country. I’m happy with Australia; just unhappy with NAIVE, UTOPIAN, HYPOCRITES.

I’d like to point out to SL and others like her I have just as much a right to be here as you do.  Australia is a nation of migrants, built on the blood, sweat and tears of migrants. The only people who can claim ANCESTRAL ownership are the aboriginals.

7) But does racism exist in Australia? Why tar everyone with the same brush?

I’d ask you to trust me on this, but you don’t have to. Here’s an ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) interview with prominent Sydney neurosurgeon, Charlie Teo, who touched on racism in his 2012 Australia Day address. Here’s his interview with the Herald Sun, claiming racism is very much alive in Australia:

Here’s the tail-end of a recent racial rant by a white person in Sydney captured on video. NO bystanders stepped in to stop his verbal attack on a group of Asian tourists. Here’s an article on the “subterranean” nature of racism in Australia. The title says it all: Noisy bigots drown out silent bias. The author includes some interesting statistics on the matter.

The fact is racism is everywhere because people allow their ignorance of those different to themselves to dictate their behaviour. To say ANIMALS have it worse and we should just disregard issues arising from the meshing of peoples and cultures is to say that doctors shouldn’t save people because we are all going to die anyway.

8) Do you just write about racism or can I expect to read about other issues on www.byestella.com?

I write human life stories with a significant cultural bent to them. If you trawl through my over 200 posts, you’ll see I often write about the clash between East and West. It’s NOT all about racism, but about DIFFERENCE. Why this particular theme?

Difference feels like sand in your shoes. You want to get rid of the irritation because it keeps rubbing against you, but human difference is something that cannot be eradicated, only managed. Wherever you go, you are going to come across differences arising from race and culture. There are few certainties in life but that is a given. Those differences will only become more pronounced with increased globalisation, and feel more personal, with intermarriage and subsequent reproduction.

9) What is your ultimate aim for www.byestella.com?

It is perhaps overreaching for me to say this but I’d like to leave my daughter, Amanda, a more racially tolerant world. I’d like my readers to go away knowing more about “others” or at least “people like me” than when they first happened upon my blog. I’d also like for them to pick up on that thread of humanism running through stories, to view similarity in people through the lense of difference. 

“I have no brown skin” and other dilemmas of raising an Asian child in the West.

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Amanda had her first play date for 2013 when Chloe, her classmate came over one Wednesday after school. I have no idea why but most children seem to like me, often confiding stuff they’d keep from their own parents. Chloe, for instance, shared she wants to be an air hostess when she grows up.

“An air hostess?” I asked, perhaps with furrowed brow.

“Yes, someone who serves food on the plane.”

I know what an air hostess is, and have nothing but great admiration for their ability to navigate time zones and get over routine jet-lag, but there’s just one problem with this: Chloe’s a little Chinese girl.

“SSSHHH…You can’t tell your mother,” I said.

“Why not?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Have you told her?”

“No.”

“Then you can’t because little Chinese girls cannot tell their mothers they want to be air hostesses.” Or supermodels or singers or actresses… Frankly, there is a prescribed list for these things, unless you want to worry your mother unnecessarily.

“Yes, but air hostesses are needed to take care of passengers on the plane.”

And I definitely AGREE with the Australian notion every person is useful, every job, important. “But you just can’t tell your mother! You’re a Chinese girl.”

Her sister is doing dentistry at university, having always been a top student, so she got what I was saying – the parental expectations that comes with being Chinese.

“But I’m NOT Chinese,” she said.

“Of course you are! Your mother and father are Chinese, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but I was born in Australia. That makes me an Australian, not a Chinese.”

I smiled at Chloe, remembering Amanda’s assertion at age 5, “I am NOT Chinese because I have no brown skin. I am white.” I even recorded the affronting statement as part of a yearly interview I do with Amanda to gage her mental development.

Whereas most people in Brisbane would ferret out a beach or ride the Citycat to explore the river, newly-arrived from Australia’s north, HRH and I made many trips to the Chinese enclaves in Brisbane’s southeast to show Amanda people like us.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry,” said my Aussie mate, F, at the time. “When I was a little girl, I wanted to have pink hair just like Barbie.”

Yes, but F could dye her hair pink to look like Barbie. Amanda and Chloe can’t look like Barbie even with pink hair. Many Aussies are complimentary about Asian faces, but  most Chinese, except the die-hard narcissists who invest in circle lenses and photoshop, have always thought themselves ugly. It doesn’t help that over here, we don’t often see faces like ours in the media. Pick up a random magazine at a news stand and you’d be hard-pressed to find one. Very occasionally there’s  the token “different” person, who’s often Eurasian, or no part Asian, to represent the very many different physiognomies found under the Asian umbrella.

“They’d be plenty of work for you as a gangster’s doll, or a doctor or one of those lab-coat wearing types,” said one of my Aussie actor acquaintances about acting roles for Asians. “Many of my Asian friends get offered these roles over and over again.”

“But I don’t think we (Asians) need more representation in the media,” said a fellow Chinese when I told her. “It’s their country. What Australia needs is more aboriginals in the media.”

I’m not arguing that Australia doesn’t, but this fellow Chinese is married to a white Australian. She will have her own set of issues, pertaining to ethnic and cultural identity, when she and her husband have kids. Either that or Australia will have a growing number of people with “other” ancestry who are totally clueless as to what “other” means.

Amanda has since grasped the concept of duality, she struggled with when we were living up north, where there are few “other” type people. I remember fondly, being invited to participate in all “multicultural events” at her school there because I was the only parent in her class of a distinctly different culture. With plenty of explanation, Amanda now understands what it means to be an ABC or Australian Born Chinese: she is still a Chinese person, but one living in Australia. She’s confounded though,  by what her father and I are: MBCs living in Australia.

“What’s Malaysian?” she once asked us for the M in MBC.

Good question. That’s something many Malaysians, after more than 60 years of independence, with the general elections once more before them, are asking themselves.

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Food on the Chinese mind at Perth Zoo.

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Next to the French, Chinese are probably the most food-obsessed. We start out our days thinking about dinner, feasts to be had at the weekend and closest holiday, and in many cases, plan road trips and holidays entirely around the sampling of various foods. In fact, if you were to tell a Chinese there’s NO food at an event – like in Australia, where most event organisers only serve tea and coffee – it’s unlikely you’ll see him or her. Even when there is no food to be hand, our minds still conjure up images of juicy roasts, succulent braise meats and other delectable morsels a long history of hunger and deprivation has inspired.

Case in point: moi, strolling through Perth’s Zoo with the family, thinking of all the wonderful meals I could have from the various creatures on display. This constant thinking of food I assure you, has nothing to do with me being on a diet. It springs itself on me even when full, at the most inconvenient of times – this being one of them.

Surveying God's generous bounty at Perth Zoo.

Surveying God’s generous bounty at Perth Zoo.

“Aren’t those birds lovely?” observes Amanda aloud.

“Yes, most certainly. Especially covered in BBQ sauce,” I say. “Or pan-fried with a bit of salt and pepper.”

“Mama! How can you look at the birds and think of food? ” she says in mock disgust.

Us with dinner, maybe? A picture of Amanda and I with Ibises at the Perth Zoo.

Us with dinner, maybe? A picture of Amanda and I with Ibises at the Perth Zoo.

How can I not? Aren’t the crispy pigeons served in Chinese restaurants birds too? Or have they morphed into plants since they no longer flap their wings? Amanda has never liked chicken or eggs so she can’t make the mental connection. She has the Aussie affliction of liking chicken breasts, the driest and most tasteless of meat. To get her to eat some meat (only monks, the poor and enlightened individuals are vegetarian), I’ve to resort to cooking chicken breast, and so, have to consume it myself. O’ the sacrifices of motherhood.

“How about that turtle?” says Amanda, pointing to a great big shelled thing.

How old do you think this thing is? I'm guessing 100!

How old do you think this thing is? I’m guessing 100!

“Delicious too,” I say, ribbing her, although I can distinctly remember having turtle soup in childhood. It tastes much like beef, only stringy.

In Malaysia, there are forest shacks you visit to have your fill of game without any hunting. I’ve heard of someone dying after consuming deer cooked in herbs or some other wild animal. Some of those are spirits and NOT really animals, they say. Or the human victim must have offended one of the local deities guarding the forests.

"What's the giraffe doing, mama?" asked Amanda. "Testing the female's giraffe's urine to know if they should make baby giraffes." EEEWWWW, was her answer.

“What’s the giraffe doing, mama?” asked Amanda. “Testing the female’s giraffe’s urine to know if they should make baby giraffes.” EEEWWWW, was Amanda’s answer.

“And how about the Tiger?” asks Amanda. “Don’t tell me you want to eat it too!”

“Tigers eat people so people eat tigers,” I say, teasing her, which is unfortunately true.

Tigers hunt humans when they are no longer able to hunt other animals. Don’t be offended but, unless they’ve developed a taste for humans, we aren’t their first choice of meat. A fit, healthy tiger in the wild much prefers to kill fit, healthy deer or antelope than a fat, sluggish human being, although I don’t suggest you court one to test my theory. Due to the Chinese practise of using tiger parts as cures for an assortment of ailments, they’ve since become a critically endangered species. Even though we lack in-built, physical weaponry, we, humans, are still the greatest predators to walk the earth.

Aren't they juicy, erm, I mean docile?

Aren’t they juicy, erm, I mean docile?

“Ok, now don’t tell me you want to eat the lizard,” says Amanda, pointing to a close relative of the iguana.

“Actually, I’ve eaten one of those,” I say, not joking.

The statue looked so real, my mouth was watering. Just kidding! I didn't want to go near the thing.

The statue looked so real, my mouth was watering. Just kidding! I didn’t want to go near the thing.

Again, in Malaysia, where iguanas are commonly found, some motorists just stop their cars to abduct these creatures for their pot. They definitely take home those run over by vehicles instead of leaving them roadside to rot. Many years ago, my mother’s friend gave her some iguana soup to try and so that evening, she fed us a chunk each for dinner. It also tasted like beef. As a matter of fact, and I don’t know if it’s God’s joke on us eat-everything buggers, but all wild meat tastes like beef.

A picture of a grumpy orang utan at the Perth Zoo.

Enjoying quite time alone. A picture of a grumpy orang utan at the Perth Zoo.

“How about the snake?” asks Amanda, pointing to one in the dim-light of the night-animals enclosure.

“What about it? Chinese eat snakes too. It must taste a lot like eel.”

Eel tastes like fatty fish. I once saw this documentary about soldiers in the Singapore army, gutting and skinning a python to make a BBQ. What can I say? I’ve eclectic viewing habits. At least I know what I’ll be eating if I find myself lost in the jungle.

“How about the otters?” says Amanda, by now eyeing me with the same level of suspicion Aussies regard many of the foods originating from animals identified here.

“Don’t know. Never had one. Although I imagine sauce makes everything edible.”

This elephant tries and tries, to avail, to get what's in the hanging basket.

This elephant tries and tries, to no avail, to get what’s in the hanging basket.

Her "promo board" says: sorry but Tricia cannot stop for photographs.

Her “promo board” says: sorry but Tricia cannot stop for photographs.

Now you needn’t worry for the animals of Perth Zoo for they are protected by high walls, high fences, and if that were not enough, security cameras on the outside to deter any would-be Chinese hot-pot enthusiast. I suggest the administrators of Perth Zoo pass out celery sticks and other vegetable crudites to Chinese visitors to help us stave off (and perhaps rewire our brains to not think of all animals as food) our meat-cravings while there. Jokes aside, Chinese do love animals and have a deep appreciation for animal conservation which is why HRH and I brought Amanda to see those big and small, furry, scaly and grizzly things that live lazy, snooze-filled days at the Perth Zoo.

Another critically endangered animal. A picture of HRH's beloved Red Panda at Perth's Zoo. We spent 20 minutes at its enclosure just to snap this photo since the thing wouldn't sit still.

Another critically endangered animal. A picture of HRH’s beloved Red Panda at Perth’s Zoo. We spent 20 minutes at its enclosure just to snap this photo since the thing wouldn’t sit still.

Best diet secrets from around the world.

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We’re so lucky nowadays because there’s a smorgasbord of food choices in most major cities around the world. Even in country towns, the effects of human migration are slowly making themselves felt, if at times inauthentically, across menus. My quest to lose 10 to 15 kilos and live healthier has led to me to examine the different dietary practices of some of the healthiest people on earth. Here are some of my favourite, which I’ve used to formulate a do-able eating philosophy:

China (the traditional Chinese diet, not the modern one with many “experimental” dishes)

  • Eat like the typical peasant of yore, as opposed to an Emperor all the time.

    Peasant-eating. Picture courtesy of http://www.npr.org

    Peasant-eating: mostly vegetables and soupy dishes. Picture courtesy of http://www.npr.org

  • Eat several traditional stir fries (eg. saute garlic with leafy greens, bean sprouts with salted fish) in the one meal. Dark leafy greens such as Chinese kale don’t just provide plenty of fibre but are also high in calcium – great for vegans.
  • Eat less meat, less often, bulked up with non-starchy vegetables (refer below)
  • Incorporate traditional ingredients such as lotus roots, gingko nuts, black fungus, black moss hair, glass noodles, bamboo shoots and assortment of herbs (eg. ginseng, dong guai, dragon eyes, wolfberry, red dates, honey dates, north and south almonds) to enhance nutritional profile of dishes.
  • Have broth-type soup with most meals, at least 1 plate of green vegetables at ALL meals. Sweets and sugary foods MUST be eaten very rarely.

Japan

 

French

  • No foods are forbidden. We can eat all foods in moderation. However, by “eating in moderation” they mean single serves in small amounts. As my French friend says, “You can have fried chicken, Estella. Just the one piece is okay.”
  • Small serves of indulgent food spaced throughout the week is less damaging to the waistline than 1 huge serve once.
  • Enjoy “the moment” when dining out. Don’t rush through meals. Instead, savour them. If dining at home, use nice China to liven up the dining experience.
  • You can have a glass of wine with meals. Remember, just 1.
  • End meals with a small leafy salad. Here’s a video on French salads from my favourite French Canadian Chef, Laura Calder.

Indian

Korean

  • Koreans place a great emphasis on eating healthily. Even their junk food caters to the health-concscious consumer with benefits of the ingredients used listed on the front or side of the package.
  • Most Korean meals come with many vegetable-based side dishes, adding to the variety of foods eaten at each meal. This means that we have a higher chance of getting the nutrients we need throughout the day.
  • Instead of regular polished white rice, Koreans frequently consume a boiled blend of grains to up their intake of minerals and fibre.
  • Foods are seldom fried; most often foods are boiled, BBQ-ed in such a way as to allow excess fat to run off. Fatty meats are cut into very thin slivers so the average diner doesn’t really eat much of it.
  • Pound for pound, Koreans eat their weight in Kimchee a year. Kimchee’s been found to be one of the world’s healthiest foods, providing the gut with a dose of good bacteria, often found in other fermented foods like yogurt and miso.

South American

  • You’ve probably already heard of Quinoa, Chia seeds and Acai berry. But did you know they, along with Cacao, the purest form of chocolate (yes, chocolate!) are South American superfoods?
  • Their cuisine, while varied across the vast region, typically features tomatoes, bell peppers, garlic, onions and black beans. Tomatoes are known to protect men against prostate cancer, while bell peppers are high in Vitamin C. Garlic and onions are antibacterial, while black beans very high in fibre.

Australia

Living in a country with a mostly Anglo-diet, which I too enjoy from time to time, I’ve found ingredient substitution key to enjoying many foods. For instance, did you know you can make creamy Cabonara sauces and soups using (unsweetened) condensed milk? To thicken the consistency of these sauces or soups, simply add a heaped tablespoon of cornflour to the mix. I guarantee you, your taste buds won’t know the difference.

Instead of starting off the cooking process with butter or oils, use it at the end to flavour food. You will taste the ingredient, certainly smell it, but use far less than you would with conventional cooking practices.

And there you have it: some of my “thin-spirations” (inspirations for being thin and healthy) from around the world. Although non-exhaustive, it will provide you with a spring-board to launch into healthful eating. Bon Apetit!

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The forced road to skinniness.

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You must be thinking I’ve a couple of screws loose in my head to want to be thinner than what I already am. For the record, I was quite happy about my body, even if I denied the existence of tuck-shop lady arms (yes, thin people have those too), a cute little roll of abdominal fat (I put that down to having Amanda), and other wobbly bits best left to your imagination. Not that I’d want you to imagine me naked, but you get what I’m saying.

When I did a straw poll among friends, no one voted me as needing to shed weight. The common consensus was, and still is, I have a pretty decent bod for my age, what more being a mother. We, child-bearers, can’t hope to compare our bodies with our fruitless sisters because anyone who’s birthed and nursed a child will know the toll that takes on your body: the stretch marks, the loose bits…okay, enough of scaring you.

Well, as you might have gathered from reading my other posts, my mother is fat-phobic. Even when I was less than 45 kilos, she’d say, “Of course you MUST be thin. You CANNOT be fatter than your mother. I’ve had 4 children, you’ve only had 1.”

And yes, I’ve heard too many times the story of her emerging, post-delivery, wearing her pre-pregnancy jeans home. I must have my father’s genes because I went home fat, swollen and oozy after having Amanda – proof Asian girls are not naturally thin.

You can only imagine what she said when I went home the December just past, weighing a very hefty (for my height and bone structure anyway) 56.5 kilos! Actually, you don’t have to imagine that either because I’m just going to tell you.

“You’re obese,” she declared, right in front of Amanda.

“What’s obese?” asked Amanda, who’d only ever heard me refer to myself, jokingly, as “fat.”

“That’s whale-sized,” I told Amanda, who responded theatrically with enlarged eyes, raised eyebrows and gaping mouth. “Sumo wrestler size.”

“What’s a Sumo wrestler?”

“Ssshhh…I’ll tell you another day.” To her grandmother, I said, “What do you mean by obese? In Australia, the average woman is a size 14.”

Of course, the average woman in Australia is also supposedly 5 feet 7 inches tall. At 5 feet 3 inches, I shouldn’t be more than a size 10. But I was only wearing a size 8 to 10, so how could I possibly be obese?

“Think of all the illness you’ll be getting,” she said. “You have to be responsible for your health, especially since you are someone’s mother. If something happens to you, no one will love Amanda like you do.”

Ignoring my protestations about being healthy and curvaceous, sort of like Salma Hayek but yellower, my mother had my father, who colludes in all her schemes, take me for a COMPREHENSIVE blood test, where I was duly informed, I have HIGH cholesterol. Wait, it gets worse. You can have HIGH cholesterol even if you eat plenty of Avocados, but my BAD CHOLESTEROL was very, very HIGH. Good cholesterol, very, very low.

You know what that means, don’t you? I was on the fast track to getting a heart attack, a stroke, Type 2 diabetes… It was hard denying the numbers in front of me, even if by Australian standards and the increasing waistlines of many Asians – due to our growing portion sizes and burgeoning love affair with Western food – I was rather slim; my BMI an acceptable 22.7.

As you may recall, when I returned to Malaysia in December, I was greeted at the airport by my sister-in-law who’s now in direct sales, that is, apart from working full time as a tax consultant. To support her growing business, her brother, my husband, HRH, reluctantly agreed to buy me Nuskin’s The Right Approach (TRA) programme. Even at cost price, it is roughly AUD 1505 (RM 4800) for 3 months worth of shakes, supplements, and other odds and ends.

I was skeptical because I had tried Herbalife more than 10 years ago, and within a year, had put back on the 5 kg I’d lost. But since HRH had agreed to buy the whole package for me…

While waiting for my package to arrive, with my sister-in-law’s first entry into Australia as a permanent resident, I devised my own weight loss programme using everything I know about nutrition. Here’s what I did:

  1. Limit daily calorie consumption to 1200. Why 1200? It’s based on my OMRON-machine reading courtesy of sister-in-law. It’s the amount of calories I need a day to sustain my activities. Any less and I lose weight. 
  2. Make meals more flavourful, less fatty. I said goodbye to my beloved fish crackers, which I’ve been indulging in almost from birth. Also sayonara to pig innards, all other obviously greasy foods. Making over favourite foods became a new hobby.
  3. Eat vegetables at EVERY meal time. It’s a no-brainer, but we don’t eat nearly as many vegetables as we should. I recommend you find a tasty low-fat dressing (Sushi Su, balsamic vinegrette etc) and eat that giant salad tonight. Skip the croutons. If having a decadent dressing like Caesar, put it on the side and use it to “flavour” the odd bite or so.
  4. Control portion sizes. Up until the last 20 years, we used to have big feeds only on celebratory occasions. With improved standard of living, we’re celebrating all the time, hence eating more than ever. A quick trick to getting yourself used to eating less is using smaller plates. Research also shows that the more people you dine with, the more you tend to eat. Try dining alone.
  5. Make eating better a game. It’s a fun one too. You’ll be standing in the food aisle thinking, “What can I put in place of fatty ingredient X, to make it taste just as good, if not better?” With this way of thinking, I’ve turn out creamy pies with less than 400 calories, bangers and mash with less than 400 calories…It doesn’t have to be rabbit food all the way, but being thin does require meal-planning and/or an acute awareness of what you put into your mouth.

When my sister-in-law turned up with my Nuskin TRA package 2 months later, I had already lost 2.4 kilos. It wasn’t a whole lot but I was very proud of my efforts since I had identified some of my dietary weaknesses and was able to partake in family dinners as usual. With her help, using the OMRON machine, I found that my muscles had increased by 0.7%, visceral fat (abdominal fat) decrease by 1, total percentage of body fat decrease by close to 2%. That may not seem like a lot to some, but if you are more than 1/3 fat like me (yes, it’s truly mind-boggling how someone seemingly thin can have so much fat), every little bit counts. It should be noted that for long-term weight-loss, healthy-eating habits have to be established and maintained. As for exercise, it  can make you feel good, but undertaken at the amount needed to loose weight, will make you age a lot faster, due to the extra free-radicals generated by the body during exercise. Perhaps, with exercise alone, you will gain back the weight once you stop.

1 month later, on Nuskin’s TRA programme, incorporating my own method of healthy-eating, I lost 3 kilos (4 kilos if you take my measurements first thing in the morning), 3 cm on my tuck-shop lady arms, 7 cm from my waist, 5 cm from my post-baby pouch aka abdomen, 6.5 cm from my hips, 3.5 cm from my thighs, 6.5 from my calves. I don’t have the OMRON machine so I can’t tell you what my visceral fat, percentage of fat or percentage of muscles are, but I can definitely say that I feel a lot better; much lighter.

PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT selling Nuskin or any other product. This is neither a paid endorsement, nor is it a recommendation for the product.

Obliging Asian daughter that I am, I’m simply chronicling my journey to become the thin person my mother has always wanted for a daughter, and perhaps inspiring a few of you, with a few extra pounds of pudge, to embark on health-finding journeys of your own. If my story has taught you anything, it should be that even seemingly thin people can be fat inside. As for visceral fat and the OMRON machine, here’s a snippet on Youtube about it:

May you find your inner thin person!