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SBS Australia
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
Confronting the past: understanding our parent's mental health
People don't want to revisit pain, but sometimes those stories are so integral to people understanding why their parents act a certain way, Phoebe Mcilwraith Credits: Host: Wing Kuang and Dennis Fang Producer: Wing Kuang, Dennis Fang, Bertin Huynh Art: Joanna Hu SBS Team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Phương Nam Nguyễn This podcast was recorded on the land of the Camaraygal people. We'd like to pay our respects to Elders past and present and recognise their continuous connection to Country. Welcome to Chinese-ish, an SBS podcast about what is it like to be young and Chinese in today's Australia. My name is Wing. I'm a former Chinese international student. And I'm Dennis, a second generation Chinese Australian. Wing, I've recently heard that you allegedly finished your one-year group therapy program. Tell me about it. So I signed up for this group therapy last year, because I just felt I really need to look after my own mental health, and it's one of the best decisions I've made. I got lots of insights into not only how to look after myself, but also my parents' mental health. I'm so proud of you, Wing. Do you think you now understand your parents better and where they came from? So when I started going to therapy in my early 20s, that was kind of like my first time interacting with the Western talk therapy. And there was always this fundamental idea that something that you feel right now could have its roots in your childhood. So for a really long time, I was really resentful to my parents. I was like, Yes, you did this to me, and that's why today I'm feeling this way. But the group therapy kind of changed my mind, and that's when I started to understand my parents' own childhood, which was during China's Cultural Revolution, and all of the sudden, things just make sense to me. Yes, yes. This is absolutely extraordinary, and is something I think about quite a lot, because think about all the childhood traumas that we tend to have. But when I think about my parents, they also went through the Cultural Revolution. Growing up with those traumas, what effects would that have when they grow up? Honestly, I think it might be the reason why my parents are quite closed off, why they're quite closed minded. I think this is what we might refer to today as intergenerational trauma, and it's basically when one generation, I believe, passes down their trauma, their problems, down to the next generation. This is what we're going to talk about in this episode, isn't it? Exactly. And we will be talking about our own mental health from the perspective of our parents' experience and what we could do to better look after ourselves as well as our parents. Joining us today is 24-year-old Jocelyn Chan who has been working in consulting and policy making for multicultural affairs, and she also, very interestingly, runs a book club on mental health for Asian Australians. Hi, everyone. Nice to be here today. I'm Australian-Born Chinese. My parents are from Hong Kong and immigrated around the time when Hong Kong was being handed back to China. We also have Phoebe Mcilwraith, a Bundjalung and Worimi journalist with Chinese heritage, who's been extensively covering mental health for First Nations and queer communities. jingeewallah, everyone. So yes, I'm Phoebe, and my connection to China comes through my Worimi family. So I come from a family called the Ping family, and they were based around Karuah, just north of Newcastle, if people know where that is, in coastal New South Wales. And we descend from a migrant called Yang Ping, who came over in the late 1800s and married into the Worimi family. And ever since then, we've been proud to be ABC or Aboriginal-Born Chinese. And let's start with you, Jocelyn, you have been running a book club about mental health, and you've consulted on mental health services for multicultural communities. When did you realise mental health wasn't just about yourself, but also people around you and even the broader Chinese or Asian communities? Yeah, I grew up in a predominantly white community, and was one of very few Asians at my school, and I felt very out of place, and felt like my parents were very different to everyone else, as you said, as well, like once I started understanding the things that impact our mental health, I became very angry at my parents, and I blamed them a lot for my issues. And obviously a lot of my mental challenges also came from feeling different, so I just didn't know how to embrace my culture and to be proud of who I was. I went on to study Asian Studies at university and learning about Orientalism, it kind of blew my mind. Suddenly, my whole identity made sense. I understood why, you know, I looked up to Western white cultures. What did you blame your parents for? Because I remember blaming my parents for putting leaves in my drinking water, which I got endlessly teased for. I guess it was just how conservative they were, the pressure they put on me. And I appreciate now that my parents tried really hard to. Pass on their cultural values to me, but I think at the time, you know, it was cringe. It was just not. I think there was a lot of pressure, and I didn't really understand where that came from. I didn't understand it came from the immigrant, the context of being an immigrant. Phoebe, I read a piece you wrote last year about being a mixed race, First Nations, Chinese person growing up in regional New South Wales, and one line really struck me where you said you didn't identify yourself as Chinese Australian, but you see your Cantonese heritage have had an impact on your upbringing as well as your views of the world. Can you tell us more about this? Why would you write this line? Where that line really comes from is that growing up in like a western settler colonial country, like Australia, race does play a very strong role in how we do view each other and how we do interact with each other, and especially in regional New South Wales, we can feel that a bit more obtusely right, at least that comes from my lived experience growing up. And I think one, one part of that, for example, is my first ever incidence of racism that I remember doesn't come from being an Aboriginal person. It comes from being of Chinese heritage. And it was because I was going to the local Girl Guides group, which is where you go and you learn how to knit with other girls in your community. And they had asked what I'd done on the weekend. And I said, Oh, I went down to Haymarket, Chinatown, because my mum and my nan were members of the Chinese Women's Association. And then the next week, when I went to Girl Guides, the white girls that used to sit next to me in the circle moved away when I sat down, they said to me, Well, I told my mum that you were Chinese, and she said, to be careful, because you would make me sick. So it was this really distinct idea growing up that even though I don't appear to be Chinese like other people, that this deep xenophobia happens if you just admit and you're proud of to have a Chinese heritage. So I do love my Cantonese heritage. It's brought me amazing food, cultural touch points, language within my family. But I also do have trouble with the Chinese Australian label for myself, because I know that I do move throughout the world with a bit more privilege to not have, you know, the overt anti-Asian or xenophobic like sentiment thrown towards me, but it still has quite an impact in my life, both negative and positive. I try to tread very carefully, but I'm not even sure whether that language is correct or best, like a lot of other mixed race people, we're still trying to figure that out, to be respectful of the privilege we do have, but also acknowledge the impact both positive and negative that our Chinese heritage has in our life. After getting that response, how did you respond to that? I mean, did you sort of hide your Chinese identity a little bit more. Did you embrace your other identities? How did you respond? I remember thinking it was really silly and more upsetting, because I wanted to play hopscotch with my friend at Scouts or Girl Guides. And I remember going home and saying to my parents, why would someone say that? Why would someone do this? And they had to explain racism and distinctly xenophobia to me about the history of anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia and how that would play into the way people might react to me, even though I would have done nothing wrong. And I think where I felt quite lucky belonging to an Aboriginal family is that the intergenerational trauma conversation has been a big conversation Aboriginal communities for a very long time, but also the conversation of having pride in cultural heritage despite discrimination. And so just like my Aboriginal family never hid their Aboriginality through overt discrimination in Australia, I never got encouraged to play down my Chinese heritage just because people had these opinions of me or my community, right? And so where my family encouraged me to go was that you don't need these people in your life. If they're not going to accept your Chinese culture or your Chinese heritage, you don't need them. It would be like if someone didn't accept me for having my Aboriginal heritage, right? And I think that's where I felt very unlucky. I don't think Lucky is the right word, but I felt really just humbled and passionate that I had this beautiful heritage that taught me to have pride in myself, no matter what people thought of me or where I come from. And Jocelyn, just now, you mentioned that you also have those moments where you suddenly understand your parents' experience. Tell us about those moments. How did you realise the things that happened to your parents or your grandparents still have an impact to your parents today? I think one example is last year, I went back to Hong Kong to visit my grandparents. And when I was younger, I'd go to Hong Kong. And, you know, I loved the food and the shopping, and that was kind of how I saw Hong Kong. But I think last year, when I was older, I guess Hong Kong, it's a pretty crazy city, like the amount of buildings there, so it's a bit dystopian to me, and the inequality there is pretty crazy. And seeing one side of my family they lived in. Like a shoe box, basically, and to kind of realise it's a reality that they still live. And you know, even now, with so much happening in China, I've kind of noticed, like with my parents and my friends' parents, they seem to still be grappling with it in different ways. Like I see some parents who don't want to know anything about China. They've come here, and this is their life now, they're culturally, probably being, you know, Chinese, but they don't seem to want to, you know, know that much about China, because it's not - Because of the protests (in 2019)? Yeah, I guess generally, in China, like, you know, with the things happening with the CCP, like, for me, I think there's a lot of history to kind of try and understand, like, everything that's happening. And then there's my dad now, who, I think his way of trying to make sense of it is, he wants to learn, like, as much Chinese history as possible, almost to kind of justify or to understand that, you know, what's happening is, is okay, like, and with the Hong Kong protests happening, I think my mum, yeah, just felt so helpless and yeah, just didn't know how to make sense of it. And her response has kind of been to just shut it out. And, you know, like I'm here now, I don't want to know. I sometimes wonder if they're trying to, like, protect us from it by not not talking about it. We also don't tend to be very political. And do you think that the idea of not being political came from their past living in quite authoritarian states? You know, obviously, culturally in China, it's not possible to question these things. Also, partly, being an immigrant, you kind of just accept that these are the way things are, and that you don't really think that you have a chance to fight against injustices, to be honest. Like, as much as I think everyone should care about politics, I'm starting to realize it can be a privilege to be able to engage that much, and if some people are so busy just trying to survive, like, how do you make space? You know, it is hard to make space. And through accepting these things, how do you think it's affected their mental health? To be honest, I think there's still a long way to go within the Asian community to talk about these things, even with my generation. I think that's why I started the book club when I found this book, it's called Permission To Come Home. So it's from an Asian American context. But yeah, I really think these conversations are really important. But some people, you know, as you get older, I think, and you spend time with family, you know, you might come to understand it, but I definitely don't feel like it's being spoken about enough. Phoebe, do you see any similarities and differences about intergenerational trauma between the First Nations community and the Chinese Australian community? Oh, absolutely. And I mean, I even did a little bit of work. I think something when I was thinking about Yang Ping's journey, it's reflecting on in every generation of our family, we have an oral history, and we reflect on the journeys of our ancestors, and what we can learn and take away from these journeys, but also what we might have to leave behind from them. And I think that's a very interesting discussion I see from my Elders. But when I think about Yang Ping, I think about how migration can mean the loss of so so much. It can mean the loss of family, community, language, when he came over in the late 1800s you don't go back when you migrate from a country, you don't go back to see your parents or your grandparents or the people you grew up with. You're more than likely never going to return to your birthplace or the street you went to to have your favorite meal. And I do think about the amount of migrant journeys that have had to undertake and just cop that loss, and if you don't have the language or the time or even the luxury when you're trying to survive in a new country to process that loss, what does that mean when you're telling these stories to your younger generations? What does it mean when your younger generations have questions about where you come from, but it hurts too much to answer those questions. And the exact same thing happens in the First Nations community as well. We have a very strong tradition of oral history that I think has kept some of that at bay, but also there's a lot of pain, and people don't want to revisit pain, but sometimes those stories are so integral to people understanding why their parents act a certain way, why you don't go to a certain you know, town or suburb, or why you don't talk to one side of the family. And so I think those are some of the similarities I see is that within that migration journey of young ping, there was a lot of loss for him. But also, I think something that we need to start talking about within the First Nations community is the understanding that First Nations people can also be diasporas, even though we're still in Australia. So my bun Bundjalung and Worimi family, they came to South Sydney in a huge Aboriginal migration that happened after World War Two, in which a lot of regional First Nations peoples moved to Sydney in order to find work, because there was just not enough work in the regions. And they also wanted to flee quite a bit of racism that was occurring back home, and there was more economic opportunity in a capital city, and so they had to live in these very multicultural multinational areas where you had a Bundjalung family live next to a Wiradjuri family. They spoke completely different languages. They had different histories and interactions with colonialism before coming to the city, and they had to lose something in that journey as well. And so while I think the conversation might be a bit further in First Nations communities about acknowledging that loss, acknowledging the need to even revisit those stories, even though they're painful, I think that's a conversation I'm just starting to see in migrant communities, and I think it's a beautiful conversation where migrant communities and First Nations communities can learn from each other and also help each other in that conversation and that journey. Phoebe, I know that there are lots of amazing people in the First Nations communities who try to stop this intergenerational trauma from passing down to the younger generations. What kind of approaches have been endorsed by the communities and how do they work? I think a key concept that people can integrate into their own, not just broader communities formally, but also just in their families informally, is the idea of Truth Telling. It sounds really simple, but it's a very popular kind of method and framework for not only First Nations people in Australia, but in North America, and even for different groups that had to undergo colonialism in the continent of Africa. And it's about trying to find ways to unpack history together in a way that's empowering. And so for some people, that's writing a family genealogy, for some people, that's writing articles about the experiences of them growing up or their parents and interviewing community members. But it doesn't have to be that formal. A very popular method in Aboriginal families is what we call 'Walking into the Photo Box'. And so when you go to most Aboriginal households, you'll have just these closets filled with photo albums, and a lot of that is to help tell a record and prompt storytelling when you're together as a family. So every Easter, Christmas, birthdays, sometimes just your Friday Night Dinner, you'll have someone in your family bring out a photo album, and you open and you go through the photos one by one, and it's not structured. You use it as a prompt to see what stories come out of people and what makes people feel compelled to tell you something. And I think that when we think in the context of trauma, if we allow people to let the story emerge from them naturally, especially our Elders, like our parents and our grandparents and their generation, we're going to learn so much more in this relaxed environment with these prompts than sitting down and having an interview, which could feel accusatory, it can feel a bit raw to just try to say to people what happened in your childhood that has stuck with you that you do not want to tell me. But if you sit with people and they go, "oh, here's a photo of someone I grew up with", "oh, this is the street where x happened, and actually, I don't think I've ever told you about that before". This method of investigating together, I think that's something from an Aboriginal family and an Aboriginal community structure that could benefit so many other people. Just bring out your photo albums, bring out even your phones and go, who's this at the family gathering? Who's this at the family lunch? I know you've said I've met her, but I don't think I've actually met her. You said I met this person when I was three. How are we actually related to them? These types of questions and prompts, I think could be a much more comfortable way of truth telling for some, for something that can be really difficult and painful, for some of our Elders. We do talk a lot about the negatives of intergenerational trauma, but in my experience, and what I think you just touched upon, is that it can also bring communities together. It can promote an idea of trying to preserve what they still can and that is all achieved by looking back upon the difficult times in the community's history. How have you seen this dynamic play out, the good and the bad side of intergenerational trauma? Something that I'll bring up, especially as a positive note, is so I talked earlier about the Chinese Women's Association, and that that is a group that both my mother and my maternal grandmother are members of, and the way they were prompted to connect with this organisation was because we have always known that we were Australian-born Chinese. It's something we're very proud of. We come from the Ping family, but my dad was looking through the records, and he found an immigration record that said my ancestor had come in from Japan, and my family were like, No way, no way we're Japanese, especially after we had learned about, you know, the Sino-Japanese war, and we had learned about that ever since we were children, as kind of the history of this area of the world that we come from. And we were like, there's no way we're Japanese. But the way that my family decided to address that was, Well, is there a way that we can prove that we do have this Chinese heritage? And it led to the Chinese Women's Association that do have an arm where they connect with historians that are interested in Chinese Australian history, and they come together once a month or a few times a year to listen to lectures about Chinese Australian history, and to reflect on the policy and the significant events that have affected our community here in Australia. And through my mother and my grandmother becoming members of this organisation, and then I became a member of the organization when I was 18, is that they teamed up with their historians, and they were able to prove that we do have a Chinese heritage. And then they invited my mum and my nan to join. And growing up going to this organisation was high was even though they were reflecting on some really harsh and difficult history, there was a pride in coming together and a pride in love, recognising the diversity of Chinese Australian experience too. And I really saw that in the way so many of the older aunties had taken in my mum and my nan was that they were so excited to have this other aspect of the Chinese Australian experience there. And so to me, that's one example in my own family, lived experience where in reflecting on history and being very public about the fact that you're doing these events about Chinese Australian history is that it attracted new people in to bring us together. And, yeah, I think that's something I do think about a lot, is that in looking at that history together, it actually brought the community together. Okay, the last few years, we've seen quite a few distressing events happening overseas, especially in China, and we've seen many events like the 2019 Hong Kong protests. We've seen the White Paper protests, which even in Australia, was quite notable because a lot of university students were quite afraid for their own safety. Do you think that our mental health services here are adequate in sort of dealing with this? You know, I think of everything that's happening in the world, not just in China, but obviously in Palestine. And, you know, it's hard to imagine how the mental health service can actually support looking into improving accessibility for culturally and linguistically diverse communities accessing mental health services. And (we) were looking into interpreting services, and we found that, as expected, well, interpreting services are essential for the language barrier. It's really not enough. You need cultural understanding and cultural competency. Sometimes I wonder if the you know, the talk therapy is enough to be able to process that level of trauma. And Phoebe, I want to ask you, because you've done so much reporting on mental health, especially on how the First Nations communities are taking services, and you once reported that it's actually quite difficult and challenging for them to seek services that understand their needs. At a time when Australia prides itself as being multicultural, we say that we are going to have multicultural services in our public health. Why is this still happening? The point in the reporting that you're definitely drawing on is from an amazing Aboriginal academic called Professor Corrinne Sullivan. And so she's been researching, like distinctly, the needs of and aspirations of the First Nations queer community. And what she really saw from her reporting that she told to me in a story about queer Aboriginal mental health was that you could either go to a service that was good for the queer community, or you can go to a service that was good for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community, but you could rarely find one that could actually address adequately the needs of both of your identities. It seems like from your perspective, that happens to so many other communities as well, where it's like you're almost having to pick one or the other, which part of me needs more help and support right now, and we see that coming out in research and lived experience, reporting and writing. We are a very multicultural and multilingual country, but it really appears that we're not reflecting that in our services, and they're just not catching up to the needs and the diversity that are in the community that they're serving. Where I've even had to go in my own mental health journey, I went to therapy for the first time last year. I know, woohoo, right? I ended up just having to go to a therapist that came from an ethnic background, because what I was finding is that if I went to a therapist that came from a similar culture, similar cultural background to me, they might reinforce the own biases we have in our culture, but if I went to someone that was white Australian, they wouldn't quite understand the needs to be connected to community or have these like different and specific, nuanced relationships with your parents and Elders, where I found a happy middle was finding a therapist that did just come from an ethnic background themselves, and so they didn't reinforce or reflect the bias or the assumptions of my culture back to me, but they could still slightly understand and have the foundation to empathise with where I was coming from, but that still required quite a bit of labour of me explaining things. But because I grew up in a multicultural family and a multicultural community, I kind of understood what it was like to try to communicate across different cultural barriers and try to find language that might be shared between different people. We've talked about this lightly already, but I do want to touch upon how differently our parents really reflected upon the ideas of mental health. For example, my dad, I can only think about what he was going through. He was working seven days a week to support his little new family, but he was all sending money back. There was so much pressure on him, and even as a kid, I could see that he was really struggling, and nobody in the family would just talk to him. And even today, if I think, if I brought up the idea that he should get therapy, he would just laugh at me. Could I ask both of you, how do we begin a conversation about mental health with our parents, who come from very different backgrounds? It's something that I've been thinking about for the last couple of years. How do you change someone's mind? And you know, you have researchers who literally dedicate their whole entire careers to this question, but the way I've been thinking about it recently is the practice of radical empathy, that even if someone believes something that's completely opposite to the feeling I hold in my heart to still not close off that journey. And I mean that comes back to some of the lessons that my grandmother gave me as a kid, but I've had to really bring that into adulthood, is to always keep an open door, and rather than being in combative arguments with people or debates with people, it's to model what I think is the right way to go forward, and if other People can see that the way I'm doing things is leading to a positive outcome, then maybe they'll eventually come around, because they're seeing that the proof is in the pudding. So for example, with therapy, I know it's been a huge journey I've had to undergo, particularly my father. So my father is a white Australian, but he grew up as a working class boy in South Sydney. When he went to high school, he went to a really prestigious selective school, and his family had to pull in money to buy him one uniform. And on his first day at school, the richer boys at school went around with scissors, and they would find the poor kids and cut their tie, because then, technically they were out of uniform, but they would have to struggle because their family didn't have enough money to buy another tie, and so on his first day at school, he had to get into a fight with these kids because they wanted to single out poor, working-class children. And that's just a taste of his life. Oh, my God, when we think about Dad law, he tells me another story every single year, and I'm like, Where have you been? I don't even know my own father, but he loves us very much. But when it comes to therapy, his whole idea was that you can just choose happiness, and why would you make life harder for yourself? I think that's a huge trend with all these people that have had to work through their own trauma and their own challenges, is when they want to create this better life for their children, and when they see us still being upset, they're like, No, but I've done the I've done the other thing I've been working all my life. I've been taking this extra step. Why is there still this unhappiness? I think there's almost a grief in them too, that they've done all this work, but that there's still work to be done. And so for him, instead of having these debates with him, like I tried to for years, I just started going to therapy. I just found a GP that was really supportive and lovely who encouraged me to go to therapy. And then when I went back home, he's like, you're so much happier. Why are you happier? Like, what has happened here? But when I said to him, like, I'm going to therapy every three weeks, that's probably the best decision I've ever made for my life. He's now encouraging me to go back. I've, you know, I got to a really good point. I haven't gone for 12 months. I'm starting to get stressed at work again, and on my last call with him, he said, 'why don't you go back to your therapist', which is a huge step for my father. And so I think for me, it's this radical empathy to the lives they lived, and hope that by demonstrating proudly to the people around me why I'm doing certain things, that they can start to see the results for themselves and maybe come around to a different idea too. What do you see next for our community to encourage just more people to be involved with this process? I think growing awareness is really important. Like starting these conversations, as I said, I am seeing a change within my generation, and I think, as I said, it takes time and having the privilege to have these spaces, to have these conversations, I think politically, as well as we've talked a lot about how important is to understand our histories, to understand why, you know, we have these experiences that impact our mental health. So learning more about Asian Australian history and promoting that is really important. Go to your GP and get your free mental health plan. Those 10 sessions changed my life. And you know, it did take me a long time to find a therapist that wasn't right for me, that wasn't right for the money I had at the time, but what I've gained from those sessions with that therapist will carry with me for the rest of my life. I think when we belong to such deeply communal cultures, we want the validation of each other, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's really lovely that we do care about the opinions of others. It makes us more conscientious about the impact that we have on the people around us, but sometimes. It can pull us back, and we need to know where our happy medium is, and just build these structures within yourself so you can model what you think is the way forward for yourself, your health, your wellbeing, and it might just inspire the people around you to do that for themselves. Yeah, with the community thing, I think my book club, that's a way to start having these conversations, and it doesn't always have to be explicitly therapy that can be beneficial for mental health, for example, finding Asian Australian spaces like, I know, like music, for example, might be one. I know there's a really big Asian Australian RAVE culture, I think that's a very big outlet that I think has some ties to a lot of our traumas. Doesn't always have to be specifically mental health. But finding these communal spaces. Phoebe and Jocelyn, it's been great having both of you on. if you or someone you know needs crisis support, contact Lifeline on 13, 11 14, the suicide callback service on 1300 659, 467, or Kids Helpline on 1800 5518 100. You've been listening to Chinese-ish, an SBS podcast about what it's like to be young and Chinese in today's Australia. This episode is hosted by Wing Kuang and Dennis Fang, produced by Wing Kuang and Bertin Huynh, with support from Joel Supple, Max Gosford and Bernie Nguyen. The artwork is by Joanna Hu. Follow Chinese-ish on your favourite podcast platform, or head to or the SBS audio app.
Perth Now
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
Ley issues mea culpa to Chinese Aussies
Sussan Ley has moved to reassure the Chinese community after the Liberal Party failed to win or retain any seats with a high Chinese-Australian population, with the Opposition Leader admitting the party didn't 'get everything right in the last election'. At the May 3 federal election, the Liberals failed to retake the notionally Liberal seat of Bennelong, with Labor's incumbent Jerome Laxale boosting his margin from a super slim 1 per cent to 9.3 per cent. In Melbourne, Liberal MP Keith Wolahan lost the blue-ribbon seat of Menzies to Labor's Gabriel Ng, and Labor's Carina Garland also maintained Chisholm. The Coalition also suffered backlash from the community after former frontbencher Jane Hume claimed Chinese spies were volunteering for Labor Housing Minister Clare O'Neil. Following a meeting with Chinese community leaders in Epping in Sydney's northwest on Monday, Ms Ley said conversations were 'frank' and it was clear the party needed to 'course correct'. Sussan Ley said she was aware the party needed to 'course correct' after the diasters of the May 3 election. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia When asked directly about Senator Hume's comments, she reiterated that the party had made mistakes in the lead up to May 3. 'We didn't get it right. We didn't get the tone right. We didn't always get the messaging right, and I want to freely acknowledge that we've turned the page,' she said. 'I'm a new leader with a different tone, different priorities and a different team.' While she would not disclose 'private discussions' with community leaders, she said the Liberals would continue the dialogue with community members. 'I think that message was well received, but I also know that the Chinese Australian community expects ongoing dialogue from this point forward,' Ms Ley said. 'So to them, they're focused on the future, and they're focused on what happens next, and they're focused on their families and their communities and their economic circumstances, just as all Australians are.' Ahead of Anthony Albanese's trip to China later this week, Ms Ley wished the Prime Minister 'well' but urged caution against expanding the free trade agreement to include to artificial intelligence. 'The people-to-people links that we talked about today underpin that, and they're part of the incredible Chinese diaspora and character that is part of the Australian community today,' Ms Ley said, adding that the Australia-China relationship would be built on 'mutual respect'. 'With respect to artificial intelligence and new free trade agreements, we have to proceed with caution, understanding the implications that always come with issues that concern our national interest.'
SBS Australia
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
After Marriage Equality: Growing Up Queer with Chinese Parents
To put it in perspective, it's like, what's homophobic to us... it's already progressive for my parents. Victor Wu Credits: Host: Wing Kuang and Bertin Huynh Producer: Bertin Huynh, WIng Kuang, Dennis Fang Art: Joanna Hu SBS Team: Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Nguyen and Philip Soliman Wing Kuang This podcast was recorded on the land of the Cammaraygal people and Wurundjeri people. We'd like to pay our respects to Elders past and present and recognise their continuous connection to Country. Wing Kuang Welcome to Chinese-ish, an SBS podcast about what it is like to be young and Chinese in today's Australia. My name is Wing. I'm a former Chinese international student, Bertin Huynh and I'm Bertin, a Vietnamese Chinese Australian. So Wing, I wanted to ask you, what does it mean to be a good Chinese child, especially a good son? Wing Kuang Oh, I don't think this is determined by me, but by our parents. For a long time, I think it's been the consensus that you need to be obedient and follow their wishes in order to be the good child, and especially if you're talking about son. Well, sons are very important in Confucius culture, you are supposed to do everything for your family. Bertin Huynh What if a fundamental part of who you are goes against that, like against their wishes? Wing Kuang What do you mean by that? Bertin Huynh Well, I'm gay, and let's face it, our Chinese parents are often more conservative than their western counterparts. In fact, my dad doesn't accept my sexuality as a gay man. Wing Kuang Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that Bertin. But I also really appreciate that you are willing to open up in this podcast about your identity, and in fact, I think a lot of reports have shown that many people in our community who identify themselves as LGBT+ group might share similar experiences as you. So in this episode, we are going to ask the very question: how can we be filial children, but also be our authentic selves? Joining us is Lucy Xu, who is a writer and recent graduate of the University of Melbourne. Lucy Xu Hi, I'm Lucy. I use the label queer, and I go by she/her pronouns. Bertin Huynh And we have Victor Wu, who's a Hong Kong Australian filmmaker. Victor Wu Hi, I identify as gay and queer, and my pronouns are he/they. Wing Kuang So I want to start at the beginning. Tell me Victor and Lucy, what's your coming out story? And did being Chinese complicate this process? Victor Wu I did not really have a really traditional, or what people would think of a very stereotypical Chinese upbringing. When we were in Hong Kong, my mum worked for the education department, so she had a little bit of more of a progressive mindset. And also, I would say that I'm not neurotypical, so a lot of the social pressures that other people feel I don't necessarily feel. I don't feel the same pressure from my parents or from the families as others might. So I was aware, like growing up, that we were the only sons to our grandparents on our father's side, and they were always talking about how they never had any male grandchildren. And then we came along really late. Wing Kuang Can you bring us back to the day when you tell your mom that, 'hey, I'm actually gay'? Victor Wu In my family growing up, face to face discussions or conversations aren't necessarily that productive. I don't feel like people listen to each other. I'm sure a lot of Chinese people will identify with this. There's a lot of fighting, and I don't think people understand each other any more, as you continue to argue. So a lot of the more serious conversations were actually conducted through written letters between family members, so that you could save your peace and have your train of thought and put your perspective forward and your argument forward in its entirety, without being interrupted. I wrote a handwritten letter to my parents and just kind of spelled out exactly how I felt, what my position was, which was that I'm not asking for approval, I'm not asking for acceptance. This is who I am. Like their decision, yes, is whether they accept it, but their decision affects whether they have a place in my life. Bertin Huynh I find it mad that you wrote a letter because my family's exactly the same. Any tiny thing will turn into a huge argument, and you're yelling and you're crying. And I actually also wrote a letter as well in Mandarin. Just like, there was no miscommunication at all, because I'm, like, if I write it in the language that you think in, and if you misunderstand, it's your fault. Like, it's not my fault. It's not I'm the one of the problem here. But you know, Lucy, you're laughing now as well. Is that kind of something? You know, your experience of coming out? Was it similar? Wing Kuang Did you also write a letter? Lucy Xu I've definitely written letters, just not about coming out. I feel like my experience was similar, but also the complete opposite in so many ways. I grew up in a very, very traditional family. My dad was a Chinese medicine doctor, my mom was an accountant, and they moved here when they were in their early 20s. They had very different, I guess, strict ideas about what they wanted for me in my life, and also, I have an older brother, both of us went through so much pressure. So for me, I left home as soon as I graduated high school and moved out. Was fully financially independent. My mum and I were actually no contact for a while, because I knew that she wouldn't be accepting of my sexuality, and I never got to come out to my dad, because he passed away when I was 13. It was only really after about a year of no contact with my mom, where both of us decided it was time that we should come back together. We did some therapy together, and it was actually through therapy, in one of our sessions that I came out to her. Victor Wu Well, props to her for agreeing to go to therapy, because I know my mom would never agree. Bertin Huynh Wing Kuang If you don't mind, Lucy, would you be able to paint us a picture about what the therapy is like? Lucy Xu I think it was a very unique situation that my mum and I were in. I'm so lucky that she was even open minded enough to want to try therapy with me. I think that it was partially to do with the fact that my dad had passed away earlier on, so she was already processing a lot of grief through therapy, just with someone else. I had a therapist who spoke Mandarin and English, so he was actually like a translator for the two of us, because I'm sure that you guys can all understand what it's like moving between different languages with family and never really being fully fluent in either with each other. Victor Wu But especially with queer issues like, it's so difficult to articulate. Lucy Xu Yeah, I was so lucky. My therapist was a gay man who was Malaysian Australian, so, yeah, he really understood, like, all of the different, I guess, like, perspectives. Victor Wu Did you find him, like, through your queer networks? Victor Wu No, I actually just googled "gay Asian therapist". Bertin Huynh I feel like it sounds like that whole inability to have the right vocation to talk about queer issues with our parents is an issue that stops us from helping them understand us. Do you feel that? Lucy Xu Bertin Huynh I feel like, in queer stories, this is a recurring narrative, especially in western queer stories, where we just cut parents off and we decide that, you know, our family's toxic, so no more family. But I feel like as people from a minority community, family is such a cornerstone of what makes us us. So I don't feel like cutting parents out or cutting family members out is as simple as it is for non-Chinese Australians or non-Chinese people in Australia. You know, why isn't it as simple for us? Victor Wu I think what makes it hard for us, to be kind of honest, is that there's more at stake. Often, it's easy to tell someone where there's nothing at stake, right? Like, white people would never understand why it's difficult to move out, right? Because for them, like their parents want them to move out, and like they would help them move out. Bertin Huynh Well, Lucy, you went no contact for two years? Lucy Xu Bertin Huynh A little over a year. Was that painful to do? Lucy Xu Oh my gosh, it was the most painful thing of my life. I can't imagine ever going through that again. Yeah, thinking about that question of why, I guess Asian Australians find it so much more difficult to cut off family, at least for me, I'm not as close with my extended family, who all live in China. And so for me, the only real family that I have right now in Australia is my mum. And so there's so much more at stake. In many ways, it kind of feels like, if I don't have my mom in my life, then it's kind of like I'm just floating around. And I think also being Asian Australian, growing up in Australia, especially surrounded by a lot more, like majority white communities, you kind of feel like you exist in this third space where you are Australian, but you're not really, and you are Chinese, but you're also not really. And so it feels like when you lose something, it's so much more impactful, because you already didn't have, maybe as much as someone else who was white growing up in Australia. Wing Kuang There's something that both of you have mentioned that really struck me, like Victor, you mentioned that you are the youngest son of the family, while Lucy, you said you are like the daughter for your mother. I just wonder, because LGBT plus is not just about sexuality, it's also about your understanding about your gender identity and also the relationship. But our own family relationship is so sex bias or gender bias in this way, like you talk about you being the youngest son, and you talk about being the daughter to your mother. How do you find that and how does that create this extra layer for you to explain to your parents and come out? Victor Wu My situation is actually really interesting... Wing Kuang Because your family has two sons, you don't need to be the one that bear the child. Victor Wu Firstly, there's that. But also what's really weird or interesting is that my mum always wanted a daughter, and she thought I was going to be a daughter, and she kind of almost treated me like a daughter. But it's kind of like a gay son and a mother bond as well. That's quite common. Bertin Huynh Well, they say gay sons are the best daughters. Victor Wu Exactly. So I did kind of have that relationship with her. And even growing up like, I think when I was born, people go, Oh, that's a beautiful baby girl, and she would be really happy, because she thinks she said that my face was like, fine when I was born was fine, and more like girls, and people would think I was a girl, and she would be really happy so and I've got lots of pink things, for some reason. Lucy Xu My mum compared to, I would say, her peers and her friends, she's also definitely more open minded, especially with my dad passing away. I think that changed a lot of her ideas about life. But certainly I think she does have quite traditional expectations for me. You know, growing up, she took me to ballet class, and I was always like her little baby, her beautiful daughter. I remember getting my ears pierced at 18, and she was crying because she's like, no, you have holes in you, like you're not perfect. And it's so funny because, like, if you look at me now, I have bleached brows. I'm probably just like everything that isn't a stereotypical Asian daughter image. But I think as my mum has grown with me, her ideas of what it means to be a good child and a good daughter has changed, and overall, I think she cares more about the values that I have inside me, and I respect her so much I have so much love and just, yeah, I worship her. She's just the most amazing person in my life. Wing Kuang Do either of you feel like you owe something to your parents? Because as a heterosexual, I have always felt that this is how my parents tried to pressure me when I was a kid. Bertin Huynh Even though my dad doesn't accept who I am and probably will never accept where he likes. We will go to family functions. I will go with my fiance to family functions, and he'll pretend both of us don't exist, but at the same time, like I do feel like I owe him a lot, like he was a refugee came to Australia with the clothes on his back and the passport in his hand, and has managed to kind of raise two children on his own. He's a single father as well, despite all the unpleasantness of coming out, and here's the homophobia, I can't hate him for it, because I feel like I owe him something. So that's what I feel like. Why we want to ask this question, Victor Wu To put it in perspective, it's like, what's homophobic to us, like, it's already progressive for my parents. One example is that when we first came to Australia, we went to an evangelical Christian church that my dad's old childhood friend who had been living in Australia for a little while, went to because we just wanted to find community and friends, right? And then we stopped going. It was because my mom came back one day, like from church, and she was talking about how vicious the people were about gay people, and how cruel they were, and and then, which is progressive, right? And then she follows up by saying that, you know, gay people are just mentally ill. They just need to be treated like it's, on one hand, progressive, but then on the other hand, still homophobic, right? So it's quite a lot of conflict, because they will have what can be considered homophobic views. But I won't ever say that they're homophobic people. Bertin Huynh And Lucy, what about you? Lucy Xu I'm so sorry that you're experiencing that conflicted relationship with your parents, but I also, sadly, fully relate to how you feel. Yeah, it's always this tension. I think I definitely still feel that I owe a lot to my mum. I've said it so many times already, but, yeah, I have so much respect and love towards her. But it's also so funny, because I think that, because I'm a daughter, some of her expectations of me, I've fully exceeded, and others, maybe not so much like when it comes to my sexuality, I think it's always going to be complicated with her. I also agree. I don't think that I would say that she's homophobic, but she certainly understands the issue in a different way. I think she always will, but I also have kind of come to peace with that, because I know that she'll be there for me when I really need her, and I'll always be there for her when she needs me the most. And I think overall, that's what's more important to me. Wing Kuang I want to ask a question about visibility, because I'm coming from a really privileged position for this in this episode, because I'm heterosexual, and my parents wouldn't have to think that, okay, if I was gay, someday I will I'm un-gay But I do have lots of gay friends, and I also find it really difficult to educate my parents that, look my friends are gay and it's their right to pursue who they love. My mom will always come back and say, yeah, maybe when he turns 30, he will become straight again. But a couple of years ago, I found a turning point. One of my cousin's friends who's quite close to my mom, came out as a lesbian and entered a really stable, long term relationship with her girlfriend. She was really happy. And my mom watched how that relationship flourished, and somehow it helped her understand, oh yeah, being LGBT, being lesbian is actually not bad. Like she even asked me, are you really sure that you are straight? Like, maybe finding a girlfriend will be much better than finding a boyfriend. But I spot the difference. It's because she saw someone who is a lesbian and she found out, oh, there's no difference, and they can live a way much better, yeah, maybe much better life. Victor Wu They don't have to serve a man. Wing Kuang And it just makes me think, like it makes me think into your stories, that your parents feel it's very difficult to accept your sexuality. Do you think that, though, if they see that you are very happy, you are having a great time with your partner, despite you having the sexuality that he disagrees with, they will actually go and accept that, because at the end of the day, they love you? Victor Wu That really resonates with me. It's 100% what I feel. In fact, that's like the main message of my film is that it's the ordinary, everyday visibility, seeing people in our own communities, not seeing something in the media, seeing some people in our schools, our workmates, not something presented in the media that's going to change their minds. And ANTRA, an advocacy and support group for queer Chinese people in Australia and New Zealand, one of their main projects is just to connect parents who have just discovered or that the kids have newly informed them of their gay or queer identity, to connect them with other parents who have already gone through that journey and accept the kids and to see all these other wonderful queer kids who are, you know, successful people, healthy people you know. And that's like their main goal. Lucy Xu I think, also by bringing your community and your lived experience in to your relationship with your family in those little everyday moments, it slowly, like, changes the way that they see just the topic of sexuality in general differently. Like for me, almost all of my friends are queer, and I'll just get my mum to meet them when we're hanging out. I'll name drop them all the time, tell them just casual things, like, oh, so and so got a boyfriend, I'm so happy for them, and I think it's just those day to day interactions that you have with your communities that really changes the way that they view topics that might come across as scary or painted differently in the media. Victor Wu I think part of the problem is because the narratives in the media and storytelling are still so much around pain and tragedy and loss, right? And it's because we don't have these positive stories that queerness equates to sadness and death and tragedy and pain. Bertin Huynh How do you feel about that? And how do you know what you're trying to achieve if you know your film as well? Victor Wu Yeah, the film is called Freely Flourish 綻放, which means to blossom in Chinese. It's set in the marriage equality debate. The inspiration for the film was not actually that, even though that was where it came from, the inspiration was actually seeing hopeful narratives, because during the pandemic. I wanted to watch something that was light hearted and that could lift me from that, you know, the darkness of a) the aftermath of the marriage equality debate, which had such a destructive impact, you know, in our communities and for trans people, like the most vulnerable people, trans community, school age kids, queer young people. Wing Kuang And since we've been talking about media, I want to mention this classic Chinese film in 1983 and I think you both know which one I'm talking about, Ang Lee's the Wedding banquet, the classic of the classic, which is also having a remake in 2025 under the same name, also talking about how gay couples try to hide the fact that they are gay and they get married to the Asian parents, because we're saying, yes, the issue is still ongoing. But it also gets slightly different from your perspective. Do you see that nowadays, in 2025 the thing that we deal with, its core is still the same, but maybe its surface is becoming different, because at the end of the day, the society is making progress? Victor Wu It's really dealing with the issues that our gay queer community deals with. Like in the past, it may have been dealing with your parents and their homophobia, but nowadays, because they see that legal changes, you know, especially in western communities, are here. I think the moral compunction is not as present, even though some of you yourself have described there's still a fundamental unacceptance or homophobia, but I think largely that's not as present, and it's kind of actually a parent dealing with how will the community think of us? That's the main tension point. Lucy Xu It's kind of the perspective has changed now more onto a wider lens and how sexuality is seen on a wider spectrum, not just from immediate family. I haven't been able to see my extended family in China since before COVID, so it's very long overdue. I remember telling her, Oh, you know, mom, like, I'm so scared, you know, I feel like I've changed so much since then. I'm so worried that our family's gonna judge me, especially because now I look more outwardly queer as well. And she was like, Lucy, they're always gonna judge you. Victor Wu That's a really mature and a really kind of profound perspective that your mum is. Lucy Xu I think that's so true, though, and I think it carries out into every single situation with family. So I'm taking that forward now. Is my advice always gonna judge you. You just have to be at peace with yourself and keep going along. Wing Kuang We talk about aspiring queer Chinese Australian leaders in the community. For example, we have William Yang, like the great photographer, photographing the Mardi Gras like in the 1970s, 1980s and we also have Penny Wong, the foreign minister, who got married last year. They are all about 40. For young queer Chinese Australians, what kind of leader or what kind of figures you want to see support the community, for example? Lucy Xu I think there are already some really great role models that exist for queer Asian Australians, or just queer marginalized younger people. I think that the power of social media has really brought that to the front. Victor Wu Firstly, I just want to mention that in Sydney, there's this really amazing collective called queer worship, and it's founded by queer Asian people. And I think the perspective that might be missing is like they may not be visible to the mainstream, but they're definitely there for our community. It's like we only realize their significance, like in hindsight. There's already a kind of people doing amazing things and leading the community, creating community, but we're not going to really learn about them as household names till much later. Lucy Xu Yeah. Speaking on this made me think of a lot of grassroots community run organisations and collectives that are doing some amazing things to bring the community together. Off the top of my head, there's some amazing magazines, like Liminal magazine. I think of HOISZN, which I think is run in Melbourne. I think even, like event collectives, they do a lot of work in Melbourne as well. There's just so many amazing community run organizations that are happening. But yeah, like you were saying, it's just they're not being platformed in the same way because they haven't been out in the world for as long. Victor Wu For young people, mainstream media is dead. Bertin Huynh Victor Wu Yes, you're never going to see these people on TV, quite frankly, because it's all social media and like, we were both saying it's all grassroots. So they're not going to be, I don't think they're going to be famous, like we understand in the older generation, or even my generation, it's going to be quite different. Bertin Huynh Let's wrap things up. So in a single sentence, Lucy, why don't you start? How can we be good Chinese children and our authentic selves? Lucy Xu Lead with love and compassion, and expect that of your family as well. Victor Wu Yeah, I think it's going deeper, not about kind of the superficial things of what your parents or your community expect, but it's like a deeper understanding of their fundamental hopes for our community, for us, which is to sort of thrive and flourish. And part of that is really allowing ourselves to discover who we are and showing our families, the people closest to us, who we are and the joy that we have in that. Wing Kuang Thank you so much for joining the show. Victor Wu So glad you guys invited us. Lucy Xu Yeah, genuinely, thank you so much. This is honestly such an amazing platform. Bertin Huynh You've been listening to Chinese-ish, an SBS podcast about what it's like to be young and Chinese in today's Australia. This episode is hosted by Wing Kuang and me, Bertin Huynh, produced by myself, Dennis Fang and with support from Joel Supple, Max Gosford, Bernadette Nguyen and Philip Solomon. The artwork is by Joanna Hu. Wing Kuang Follow Chinese-ish on your favourite podcast platform, or head to or the SBS Audio app.
SBS Australia
07-06-2025
- General
- SBS Australia
Hailey is a sex therapist. Her family still doesn't know what she does for work
Nationally, there are only a handful of sex and relationship therapists who offer counselling in Chinese dialects. Source: SBS News / Karin Zhou-Zheng For a long time, Hailey Lin's job has been a mystery to her extended family. Whenever her mother, who lives in Hong Kong, is asked about Lin by relatives and friends, she tells them she's a social worker "doing psychotherapy things" in Australia. But in fact, the Hong Kong-born 33-year-old does more than just psychotherapy: she works as a clinical psychosexual therapist in Sydney, where she helps people explore sex and relationships. Lin says despite her mother's reluctance to disclose her occupation, she is supportive of it. "She can be open-minded, but also she can be very conservative because it is not the norm in Asian culture [to talk] about sex or intimacy," Lin tells SBS Podcast Chinese-ish . Ronald Hoang has had a similar experience. Growing up in a Vietnamese-Chinese Australian household, Hoang watched his cousins become doctors, lawyers and pharmacists — professions his parents enthusiastically endorsed. But he decided to take a different pathway, specialising as a relationship and family therapist, which involves helping couples navigate love, intimacy and family systems. Even after years of practice, Hoang says his mother still feels confused about his work. "I'm pretty sure she still doesn't know what I do. The way she describes it is that I work with 'crazy people'," the 36-year-old says. But she's accepting … I think she understands it a bit better nowadays. Despite mixed reactions from their parents, Hoang and Lin are determined to change the prevailing narratives and taboos around sex and relationships within the Chinese Australian community — and part of a small number of therapists with Chinese backgrounds who offer specialised counselling on the topic. According to 2021 Census data, there are 4,026 psychotherapists — a category that includes psychosexual therapists — in Australia. Only 80 of them speak Mandarin, Cantonese or other Chinese dialects at home. Of that cohort, 42 were born in China, Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan, making the pool of sex and relationship therapists with Chinese cultural and linguistic knowledge very small. Because of this, Lin and Hoang say they find their services particularly popular among Asian clients, who feel they have a cultural shorthand. Hoang says he noticed the influx of Asian Australian clients when he started his private practice. "I do get a lot more Asian clients who specifically come to me because they feel — and they even directly say this to me — that I would 'get them' a bit better," Hoang says. "So they do open up, and they do come [to the counselling sessions] because they feel I can relate to their culture." Lin says for some of her clients, talking about sex and intimacy can feel like speaking a foreign language. "Talking about sex [and using that] vocabulary, it can be like an alien or foreign language when you speak about your genital parts or even your intimacy," she says. She also notices that many of her Asian Australian clients are unfamiliar with how therapy works. Sometimes she says they expect her to act more like a GP who can prescribe them medication or expect an immediate result after the therapy. In Hoang's practice, traditional values around family loyalty are a recurring topic in his conversations with Chinese clients. "[I think] because a lot of us are migrants and come from various places that there is intergenerational trauma that's probably a little bit more frequent than other different kinds of backgrounds," he says. While some Australians may hold the impression that Chinese people tend to be conservative when it comes to intimacy, Lin says it's not the case. "There's a misconception that only Asian or Chinese people find [conversations about sex] challenging," she says. The fact is, even for Western people, they still find it challenging too, because it's against the mainstream culture. But for Chinese Australians, there are some cultural barriers that make it harder for them to have candid discussions about sex. Lin says the lack of comprehensive sex education in schools in many Asian countries is one of the key factors. "They just talk about biological stuff, but they don't tell you how to give consent to help your first sexual experience, or they don't talk about pleasure," she says. Even in cases where conversation is encouraged by parents or educators, Lin says many still focus on abstinence, saying things like, "'don't do this', 'don't fall in pregnancy', 'protect yourself', 'use a condom'". "But sex is something we need to learn, we need to build up; a skill we need to practice," she says. Hoang says shame is a key barrier that many Chinese people encounter when talking about sex. Shame is a weapon that's often used in Asian culture. "Shame is a feeling that we get when we're kind of telling ourselves that we are a bad person," Hoang says. "And the following action [typical for] shame is to hide, to withdraw, because you are such a bad person that you don't want other people to be around you and see you for the 'badness' that you are." As two of the very few sex and relationship psychotherapists with Chinese heritage who offer services in Australia, Lin and Hoang know they bear an extra responsibility in helping to educate their community about sex. Hoang says besides stigma and stereotypes, there is also a prevailing myth that sex should "always be good", especially with a committed partner, which can cause anxiety among some clients. Instead, he encourages them to think about "seasons" when it comes to sex. Hoang explains: "There are times when it's summer and it's hot and heavy, and there are other times when it's winter and cold, and then there are other times when it's spring or autumn when it's kind of lukewarm." Above all, he stresses communication is the key to having a positive sex life and relationships. "If you want more sex, just talk about it openly. It doesn't have to be something serious," he says. Lin agrees, saying it's natural for intimate relationships to ebb and flow and advocates for the 'good-enough sex model' — a psychological concept based on balancing positive experiences of intimacy with realistic expectations. "You will have frustration in your sex life, in your intimacy, but always it remains 'good enough sex'. "Sometimes we allow ourselves to have below-average sex, but sometimes also bring some novelty into our sex life, because this is human nature — we all like new stuff." With additional reporting by Bertin Huynh and Dennis Fang Lifestyle Sexual consent Sydney Share this with family and friends
Sydney Morning Herald
03-06-2025
- General
- Sydney Morning Herald
A life of quiet strength and profound impact
SEE TUANG TAN September 1, 1950-May 16, 2025 See Tuang Tan, known to many simply as 'Tan', passed away in Bendigo last month, aged 74. A teacher, cultural leader and community elder, he leaves behind a legacy that extends far beyond the boundaries of regional Victoria – into the heart of Australia's evolving multicultural identity. Born in Seremban, Malaysia, in 1951 to a Hainanese Chinese family, Tan arrived in Bendigo in 1970 to study electrical engineering at the Bendigo College of Advanced Education, now La Trobe University. He was 19, newly arrived, and the only Asian engineering student on campus. He would go on to become one of the most respected contributors to the preservation and celebration of Chinese Australian history – playing a foundational role in the creation of Bendigo's Golden Dragon Museum, now recognised nationally as the future home of the National Chinese Museum of Australia. Tan first encountered Bendigo's famed dragons in 1970, witnessing Sun Loong's debut in the city's Easter procession. It was a moment that stayed with him – one that sparked a lifelong connection to the local Chinese community. He formally joined the Bendigo Chinese Association in the late 1970s, beginning decades of volunteer service that would help reshape public understanding of Chinese Australian heritage. In 1978, Tan founded Dragon Court, Bendigo's first refined Asian dining experience. It was also the first Chinese restaurant in the region to take a principled stance against 'dim sims,' instead focusing on authentic Chinese Malaysian cuisine, introducing many locals to flavours they had never encountered before and a BYO license. The restaurant quickly became a social landmark and a quiet form of cultural diplomacy, elegant, welcoming, and ahead of its time. Tan's leadership within the Bendigo Chinese Association grew steadily over the years. He eventually served as secretary, treasurer, and vice-president. He was a key contributor to several heritage initiatives, including the restoration of the Emu Point joss house and the careful translation of Chinese inscriptions at the White Hills cemetery. He helped restore dignity and visibility to that sacred ground. For Tan, it was about restoring honour and remembering those who came before. Perhaps his most enduring contribution came through the Golden Dragon Museum. Opened in 1991, it stands today as one of Australia's most significant institutions dedicated to the history of Chinese Australians. Tan was instrumental in its planning, fundraising and early operation, serving as its first manager. He worked alongside co-founders Russell Jack AM and the late Joan Jack OAM, forming a formidable trio whose quiet determination and shared vision laid the groundwork for a national legacy.
