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Unpolished Gem
After Alice Pung’s family fled to Australia from the killing fields of Cambodia, her father chose Alice as her name because he thought their new country was a Wonderland. In this lyrical, bittersweet debut memoir & already an award- winning bestseller when it was published in Australia & Alice grows up straddling two worlds, East and West, her insular family and the Australia outside. With wisdom beyond her years and a keen eye for comedy in everyday life, she writes of the trials of assimilation and cultural misunderstanding, and of the tender but fraught relationships between three generations of women trying to live the Australian dream without losing themselves.
Unpolished Gem is a moving, vivid journey about identity and the ultimate search for acceptance and healing, delivered by a writer possessed of rare empathy, penetrating insight, and undeniable narrative gifts.
Unpolished Gem is a moving, vivid journey about identity and the ultimate search for acceptance and healing, delivered by a writer possessed of rare empathy, penetrating insight, and undeniable narrative gifts.
282 pages, Paperback
First published August 26, 2006
84 people are currently reading
1830 people want to read
About the author
Alice Pung
39 books369 followersAlice was born in Footscray, Victoria, a month after her parents Kuan and Kien arrived in Australia. Alice’s father, Kuan - a survivor of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime - named her after Lewis Carroll’s character because after surviving the Killing Fields, he thought Australia was a Wonderland. Alice is the oldest of four - she has a brother, Alexander, and two sisters, Alison and Alina.
Alice grew up in Footscray and Braybrook, and changed high schools five times - almost once every year! These experiences have shaped her as a writer because they taught her how to pay attention to the quiet young adults that others might overlook or miss.
Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was shortlisted in the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards. It was published in the UK and USA in separate editions and has been translated into several languages including Italian, German and Indonesian.
Alice’s next book, Her Father’s Daughter, won the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards and the Queensland Literary Awards.
Alice also edited the collection Growing Up Asian in Australia and her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, and The Best Australian Stories and The Best Australian Essays.
Alice is a qualified lawyer and still works as a legal researcher in the area of minimum wages and pay equity. She lives with her husband Nick at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne, where she is the Artist in Residence.
Alice grew up in Footscray and Braybrook, and changed high schools five times - almost once every year! These experiences have shaped her as a writer because they taught her how to pay attention to the quiet young adults that others might overlook or miss.
Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was shortlisted in the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards. It was published in the UK and USA in separate editions and has been translated into several languages including Italian, German and Indonesian.
Alice’s next book, Her Father’s Daughter, won the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards and the Queensland Literary Awards.
Alice also edited the collection Growing Up Asian in Australia and her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, and The Best Australian Stories and The Best Australian Essays.
Alice is a qualified lawyer and still works as a legal researcher in the area of minimum wages and pay equity. She lives with her husband Nick at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne, where she is the Artist in Residence.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 261 reviews
April 3, 2011
I had meant to read this years ago, when it first came out. Then I read a review by Choupette and meant to read it after that too. But never did. Then I was at the local library last week and saw the audio book. I read the back of the box and was told that this is not your normal ‘South East Asian comes to Australia’ story – no boats here, just lots of laughs and fun times.
There is only one possible explanation – the person who wrote the blurb to this audio book never read it. This is anything but a laugh a minute novel. There were times when it was so painful that I almost stopped altogether. The parts at the beginning where her mother and grandmother use her as an instrument to cause pain to each other (and damn the feelings of the child) are just awful. The scene where the all-too-young Alice is left to look after her sister for hours and who then falls out of bed and then her mother blames Alice for any potential brain damage – well, that was the part where I nearly turned the tape off. I would have been much more resilient if not for the person who wrote the blurb, who really does need to go back to Blurb School.
Rule number one – there is no such thing as a laugh a minute book with the long shadow of the killing fields stretching across it. Like Auschwitz, some topics were simply never made for sketch comedy. This book definitely does not present itself as such.
Rule number two – if the main character ends up on anti-depressants at 17 perhaps this is a sign of something deeper going on than a cute coming of age story for a girl that just happens to be Asian Australian. This is a fascinating story of what it means to be an Asian girl growing up in pretty well contemporary Australia. If you need some fire reignited in your feminist belly, this is as good a book to read as any other.
There were a few things I didn’t like about the book – just about every time she had internal arguments with herself about her boy friend was overwritten and could so easily have been handled better. All the same, the best of this book is that mostly it is written in good, clean and clear sentences. That is, there is very little crap. Which is always a good sign.
I feel sure that parts of this book will stay with me for quite some time. I also went to one of the primary schools she went to, one of the long string of schools I went to in my own childhood journey across Melbourne. It is nice reading books set in Melbourne that mention places I’ve known all my life, getting to see them through another set of eyes. I am glad I didn’t stop listening to this – but it is definitely not a light book, not by any stretch of the imagination.
My favourite bit is this – oh, some background if you are not Australian. Greek and Italian Australians once were called Wogs as an insult – now this is a word you mostly only hear used by Greeks and Italians to describe themselves. They call Anglo-Australias, ‘Skips’ – after Skippy, the bush kangaroo. This was the funniest part of the book:
“My cousin Melanie had recently married her skip boyfriend, although I don't know why he called himself that. "Hey I'm just a skip!" he kept insisting, "I won't be offended if you all call me that, ha ha!" He grinned like a goof at his own generosity, not realising that all of my other relatives had already determined from day one that they would refer to him as the Round Red-haired Demon, even in Melanie's presence."
There is only one possible explanation – the person who wrote the blurb to this audio book never read it. This is anything but a laugh a minute novel. There were times when it was so painful that I almost stopped altogether. The parts at the beginning where her mother and grandmother use her as an instrument to cause pain to each other (and damn the feelings of the child) are just awful. The scene where the all-too-young Alice is left to look after her sister for hours and who then falls out of bed and then her mother blames Alice for any potential brain damage – well, that was the part where I nearly turned the tape off. I would have been much more resilient if not for the person who wrote the blurb, who really does need to go back to Blurb School.
Rule number one – there is no such thing as a laugh a minute book with the long shadow of the killing fields stretching across it. Like Auschwitz, some topics were simply never made for sketch comedy. This book definitely does not present itself as such.
Rule number two – if the main character ends up on anti-depressants at 17 perhaps this is a sign of something deeper going on than a cute coming of age story for a girl that just happens to be Asian Australian. This is a fascinating story of what it means to be an Asian girl growing up in pretty well contemporary Australia. If you need some fire reignited in your feminist belly, this is as good a book to read as any other.
There were a few things I didn’t like about the book – just about every time she had internal arguments with herself about her boy friend was overwritten and could so easily have been handled better. All the same, the best of this book is that mostly it is written in good, clean and clear sentences. That is, there is very little crap. Which is always a good sign.
I feel sure that parts of this book will stay with me for quite some time. I also went to one of the primary schools she went to, one of the long string of schools I went to in my own childhood journey across Melbourne. It is nice reading books set in Melbourne that mention places I’ve known all my life, getting to see them through another set of eyes. I am glad I didn’t stop listening to this – but it is definitely not a light book, not by any stretch of the imagination.
My favourite bit is this – oh, some background if you are not Australian. Greek and Italian Australians once were called Wogs as an insult – now this is a word you mostly only hear used by Greeks and Italians to describe themselves. They call Anglo-Australias, ‘Skips’ – after Skippy, the bush kangaroo. This was the funniest part of the book:
“My cousin Melanie had recently married her skip boyfriend, although I don't know why he called himself that. "Hey I'm just a skip!" he kept insisting, "I won't be offended if you all call me that, ha ha!" He grinned like a goof at his own generosity, not realising that all of my other relatives had already determined from day one that they would refer to him as the Round Red-haired Demon, even in Melanie's presence."
August 29, 2009
Given that I'm not strictly speaking Asian, it's possibly not at all pc of me to say this in this context, but thank
FUCKING GOD
for an Asian-Australian writer. There needs to be more of them (and more Lebanese-Australian writers, Mauritian-Australian writers and Sudanese-Australian writers, but they don't touch my life so closely, so I don't care as much). I think it's already been established that I'm not exactly in touch with the greater contemporary Australian literary scene, but the only other Asian-Australian writer I can think of is Shaun Tan.
Hurry up and grow up, my generation! I want to read your books!
This book was annoyingly written. Apparently, it is what is known as autofiction, a genre in which the author fictionalises their own life. Or something. So we hear about Alice's parents and grandmother coming to Australia from a life of poverty in Cambodia/China, their difficulties adjusting to Australian life, Alice's attempts to reconcile her Asian-ness with her Australian-ness, and so on. For much of the book, she had this irritating "I'm-an-omniscient-narrator" thing going on, even though it was also written in first person. There's a reason this sounds like a contradiction in terms! It was bad. And then there was all this perfectly ordinary, decent prose, only to be spoiled by these completely out-of-place metaphors, spikes of over-the-top alliteration, and completely pretentious pretentions of being able to write well! "Spreading stories like the Vegemite on my toast." "Boxed into my blue blazer." "The wah-sers." Alice Pung, you are clearly not a good enough, or experienced enough, writer to make such phrases fit into your prose without sounding like a complete twat! So don't do it!
But all this could be forgiven because Alice Pung is not only Asian-Australian, but Melburnian-Australian, and this book was like my own life re-told from a slightly different perspective. But for a quirk of fate, Alice's life could have been mine. Migrant parent(s). Suburban Melbourne (western instead of eastern suburbs, but same diff). Odd one out at private school. University. College. Boyfriends. Family. Existential Angst. But man, oh man, how comforting it is to read about things I know! How much I remember how confused I was the first time I went to my friend Jean's house and being handed a pair of slippers at the door! I didn't know whether I was supposed to keep them afterwards or not, because who would want to wear again the slippers that had been on my big, smelly, non-Asian feet? I left them, in the end, under Jean's bed. I wasn't used to wearing slippers around the house instead of shoes.
And the incidental, institutionalised, casual-and-unconcerned racism. And the Asian lady sitting in the wheelchair outside the house on Canterbury Road, near the intersection with Station Street. Day after day, rain or shine, sitting there, staring at the cars.
Hurry up and grow up, my generation! I want to read your books!
This book was annoyingly written. Apparently, it is what is known as autofiction, a genre in which the author fictionalises their own life. Or something. So we hear about Alice's parents and grandmother coming to Australia from a life of poverty in Cambodia/China, their difficulties adjusting to Australian life, Alice's attempts to reconcile her Asian-ness with her Australian-ness, and so on. For much of the book, she had this irritating "I'm-an-omniscient-narrator" thing going on, even though it was also written in first person. There's a reason this sounds like a contradiction in terms! It was bad. And then there was all this perfectly ordinary, decent prose, only to be spoiled by these completely out-of-place metaphors, spikes of over-the-top alliteration, and completely pretentious pretentions of being able to write well! "Spreading stories like the Vegemite on my toast." "Boxed into my blue blazer." "The wah-sers." Alice Pung, you are clearly not a good enough, or experienced enough, writer to make such phrases fit into your prose without sounding like a complete twat! So don't do it!
But all this could be forgiven because Alice Pung is not only Asian-Australian, but Melburnian-Australian, and this book was like my own life re-told from a slightly different perspective. But for a quirk of fate, Alice's life could have been mine. Migrant parent(s). Suburban Melbourne (western instead of eastern suburbs, but same diff). Odd one out at private school. University. College. Boyfriends. Family. Existential Angst. But man, oh man, how comforting it is to read about things I know! How much I remember how confused I was the first time I went to my friend Jean's house and being handed a pair of slippers at the door! I didn't know whether I was supposed to keep them afterwards or not, because who would want to wear again the slippers that had been on my big, smelly, non-Asian feet? I left them, in the end, under Jean's bed. I wasn't used to wearing slippers around the house instead of shoes.
And the incidental, institutionalised, casual-and-unconcerned racism. And the Asian lady sitting in the wheelchair outside the house on Canterbury Road, near the intersection with Station Street. Day after day, rain or shine, sitting there, staring at the cars.
June 20, 2016
Alice Pung is just a terrific writer! One of the rare truly talented ones. Her mind is a little mad in a poetic way. This memoir documents not just events from her life, but also artfully recreates family events she could never witness and, even more interestingly artistically, the hilarious alternative reality of her mind. The ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’. Everyone praises the humour of this book and I wholeheartedly agree, but the real story here is Alice is a poet. I’d call this poetry-memoir. I was deeply moved not just by the story, but by how freshly and with what gusto it was told.
May 20, 2010
Honestly, I was bored at times. The ending was jarring too, because it was so random and sudden. I could sort-of understand why Alice did what she did and I'm glad that she was able to honestly evaluate her relationships, but I think the story should have continued a little after that (the scene should not be cut out because it's a very key scene, but it needed a follow-up).
You may think I despised this book but I didn't. The author has a great sense of humor and she's able to poke fun at the strictness of her parents while still remaining the ideal obedient daughter. Although I am confused by her family's background. Alice's father's mother was definitely Chinese, she immigrated to Cambodia because she was a revolutionary and the government was after her. There she met Alice's father's father and I'm not sure if he's Cambodian or Chinese. She met him at a Chinese school, so I do think he's Chinese but he was way older and a teacher so maybe he was Cambodian and just taught at a Chinese school. I'm pretty sure Alice's mother is Cambodian though, Alice doesn't reveal much about the beginning of her life, her story starts when her mom is thirteen.
Nevertheless, I loved reading about the Chinese-Cambodian culture and Alice's interesting family. There are two things that really stuck me in reading this novel, how Alice and her family call white people "ghosts". I found this quite amusing and smiled to myself every time I read it. I also thought that their definition of gossip/insults was brilliant, "Words with bones in them, my grandmother calls them. Words to make the other person fall flat on their back and die a curly death, my mother says. The sharp ones, the ones you can use if ever you need a weapon to protect yourself." (pg. 36). I also loved the glimpse into Australian culture in general, mainly though vocabulary. For example, an ocker (see summary of the book above) is someone with an Australian accent who speaks and acts in an "uncultured manner" (thanks Wikipedia!). I had no clue what an ocker was but I had fun reading the bits of slang (bugger!) scattered throughout the novel and I was pleased that there was no translation (I'm not even sure if this book was published in the U.S., I don't think it was) you had to use context clues or just go look it up. Alice and her grandmother have a special relationship that was really heart-warming to read abou
Unpolished Gem was a humorous look into the life of an average middle class Chinese-Cambodian family living in Australia. I learned a lot about Chinese-Cambodian and Australian culture. The strong characters, rich history and culture are never sugar-coated which keeps the book interesting and original. I do think the ending could have been way better and the story becomes tedious at times, but the author's light hearted look at things and her way with words, helped me finish the book. I cheered when she said "I wanted to know whether it was only because I was 'exotic' and if so, what that word meant to him. If he told me he liked my almond eyes and caramel skin, I would tell him to buy a bag of confectionery instead, because i was sick of it all-how we always had to have hair like a black waterfall, alabaster or porcelain skin, and some body part or other resembling a peach." (pg. 230)I LOVE this line! I have mixed feelings on this memoir, but I would say if you want to learn about being Asian in Australia then this book is a must-read for you.
You may think I despised this book but I didn't. The author has a great sense of humor and she's able to poke fun at the strictness of her parents while still remaining the ideal obedient daughter. Although I am confused by her family's background. Alice's father's mother was definitely Chinese, she immigrated to Cambodia because she was a revolutionary and the government was after her. There she met Alice's father's father and I'm not sure if he's Cambodian or Chinese. She met him at a Chinese school, so I do think he's Chinese but he was way older and a teacher so maybe he was Cambodian and just taught at a Chinese school. I'm pretty sure Alice's mother is Cambodian though, Alice doesn't reveal much about the beginning of her life, her story starts when her mom is thirteen.
Nevertheless, I loved reading about the Chinese-Cambodian culture and Alice's interesting family. There are two things that really stuck me in reading this novel, how Alice and her family call white people "ghosts". I found this quite amusing and smiled to myself every time I read it. I also thought that their definition of gossip/insults was brilliant, "Words with bones in them, my grandmother calls them. Words to make the other person fall flat on their back and die a curly death, my mother says. The sharp ones, the ones you can use if ever you need a weapon to protect yourself." (pg. 36). I also loved the glimpse into Australian culture in general, mainly though vocabulary. For example, an ocker (see summary of the book above) is someone with an Australian accent who speaks and acts in an "uncultured manner" (thanks Wikipedia!). I had no clue what an ocker was but I had fun reading the bits of slang (bugger!) scattered throughout the novel and I was pleased that there was no translation (I'm not even sure if this book was published in the U.S., I don't think it was) you had to use context clues or just go look it up. Alice and her grandmother have a special relationship that was really heart-warming to read abou
Unpolished Gem was a humorous look into the life of an average middle class Chinese-Cambodian family living in Australia. I learned a lot about Chinese-Cambodian and Australian culture. The strong characters, rich history and culture are never sugar-coated which keeps the book interesting and original. I do think the ending could have been way better and the story becomes tedious at times, but the author's light hearted look at things and her way with words, helped me finish the book. I cheered when she said "I wanted to know whether it was only because I was 'exotic' and if so, what that word meant to him. If he told me he liked my almond eyes and caramel skin, I would tell him to buy a bag of confectionery instead, because i was sick of it all-how we always had to have hair like a black waterfall, alabaster or porcelain skin, and some body part or other resembling a peach." (pg. 230)I LOVE this line! I have mixed feelings on this memoir, but I would say if you want to learn about being Asian in Australia then this book is a must-read for you.
November 7, 2015
I find this memoir more interesting than her other one (Her Father's Daughter), and I also find it better written (If that's even possible).
This memoir chronicles Alice's life from before she was born, to when she is nineteen. It's a culturally heavy book for people like myself who are born asian in a Australia. But it's nice to think that she had a lot of family around her to give her the flavour in her life that I never really experienced. Yet strangely, even though my family was not as colourful nor as full and complete, I still could emphatically relate to many of Alice's experiences. From her interactions with her grandmas, to school, to going silent, to experiencing first love. And while there are so many places in which I would look at my own history and think--ah, my life wasn't like that, not really, yet at the same, yeah, it was only...I never really thought about it that way.
I think we need more Australian works like this. Not more stories about the lives of refugees--although those are just as important as stories like Alice's--and immigrants migrating from their native lands to a new one. What we need are more 'young' stories, of young Asian-Australians, not just in creative non-fiction, but in fiction, in particular, young adult fiction, that other young adults can relate to. We don't live in worlds of monotony anymore. Our world is coloured by multiculturalism, of people who are born and raised in a land, which should not be foreign to them, yet as Alice Pung's memoir depicts, this land we call our own, doesn't always feel like our own because we aren't necessarily able to follow the same values as those who consider themselves 'Australian' in the sense of Anglo-Saxon. Culturally diverse, second gen migrants/first gen Australian borns, are trapped between two worlds, and also, trapped within both/or more worlds. They are inside each world, experiencing the realities of both, yet at the same time, are stuck watching the others within these worlds. They are Inside Watchers.
From this memoir, I see a lot of where Pung drew her inspiration for Laurinda which is great, but it also confirms my feelings when I did read Laurinda--Laurinda had too much of that 'memoir-like' feeling which for me was pleasantly unpleasant. Still, this was an interesting read. A very well crafted chronicle of important and insightful memories. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone who ever wants to know (kind of anyway because everyone is unique little butterflies after all, just as experiences are too) what it's like to be inside the head of an Australian-Asian (Asian-Australian), and to experience what it's like growing up as one, then, this book is a great one. Definitely a very interesting memoir, and one of few I would ever give a chance to reading (for I really don't like memoirs normally!)
This memoir chronicles Alice's life from before she was born, to when she is nineteen. It's a culturally heavy book for people like myself who are born asian in a Australia. But it's nice to think that she had a lot of family around her to give her the flavour in her life that I never really experienced. Yet strangely, even though my family was not as colourful nor as full and complete, I still could emphatically relate to many of Alice's experiences. From her interactions with her grandmas, to school, to going silent, to experiencing first love. And while there are so many places in which I would look at my own history and think--ah, my life wasn't like that, not really, yet at the same, yeah, it was only...I never really thought about it that way.
I think we need more Australian works like this. Not more stories about the lives of refugees--although those are just as important as stories like Alice's--and immigrants migrating from their native lands to a new one. What we need are more 'young' stories, of young Asian-Australians, not just in creative non-fiction, but in fiction, in particular, young adult fiction, that other young adults can relate to. We don't live in worlds of monotony anymore. Our world is coloured by multiculturalism, of people who are born and raised in a land, which should not be foreign to them, yet as Alice Pung's memoir depicts, this land we call our own, doesn't always feel like our own because we aren't necessarily able to follow the same values as those who consider themselves 'Australian' in the sense of Anglo-Saxon. Culturally diverse, second gen migrants/first gen Australian borns, are trapped between two worlds, and also, trapped within both/or more worlds. They are inside each world, experiencing the realities of both, yet at the same time, are stuck watching the others within these worlds. They are Inside Watchers.
From this memoir, I see a lot of where Pung drew her inspiration for Laurinda which is great, but it also confirms my feelings when I did read Laurinda--Laurinda had too much of that 'memoir-like' feeling which for me was pleasantly unpleasant. Still, this was an interesting read. A very well crafted chronicle of important and insightful memories. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone who ever wants to know (kind of anyway because everyone is unique little butterflies after all, just as experiences are too) what it's like to be inside the head of an Australian-Asian (Asian-Australian), and to experience what it's like growing up as one, then, this book is a great one. Definitely a very interesting memoir, and one of few I would ever give a chance to reading (for I really don't like memoirs normally!)
March 24, 2011
Unpolished Gem is the second memoir that I have read, the first one being the Diary of Anne Frank. This book is actually part of my English assignment and I am supposed to do an expository essay out of this. Being an Asian Memoir, this genre is fairly new to me but it is a very great book. Funny, lighthearted and a great reading experience in a whole.
I can safely say that this book opens up a window to the life of an Asian girl having to battle through the culture that she grew up into, which is the Australian culture, while having to preserve her own Asian heritage, with the constant companion of extremely traditional grandmother and parents. The book itself is rich with Asian culture, traditions, typical Asian people and customs. And at the same time pointed out how all these Asian quirkiness fit into the uncharted territory of the Whites and their totally opposite cultures.
The thing I like about the book is that there are so many things that I can relate to. I have just moved to Australia recently, and while I do not have to struggle with the cultures - because by now I perfectly know what the norms are and I'm very much the stereotypical Asian - making adjustment isn't so simple either. This book made me go 'Oh, I have totally experienced that before!' Which tells me that I am, after all, not the only one having to experience such things and it's nice to know that you are not alone. At some part of the books, the feelings that Alice had mirrored mine perfectly, and for that alone the book holds a special place within my heart, so close, so relatable, so poignant.
I have to thank whatever fate that caused my teacher to make this an option for the assignment, that caused me to choose this book despite the very tempting alternative. I see this book as something more than just an assignment, but a book that helped me through this transition period, which is also possibly one of the toughest times in my life.
I can safely say that this book opens up a window to the life of an Asian girl having to battle through the culture that she grew up into, which is the Australian culture, while having to preserve her own Asian heritage, with the constant companion of extremely traditional grandmother and parents. The book itself is rich with Asian culture, traditions, typical Asian people and customs. And at the same time pointed out how all these Asian quirkiness fit into the uncharted territory of the Whites and their totally opposite cultures.
The thing I like about the book is that there are so many things that I can relate to. I have just moved to Australia recently, and while I do not have to struggle with the cultures - because by now I perfectly know what the norms are and I'm very much the stereotypical Asian - making adjustment isn't so simple either. This book made me go 'Oh, I have totally experienced that before!' Which tells me that I am, after all, not the only one having to experience such things and it's nice to know that you are not alone. At some part of the books, the feelings that Alice had mirrored mine perfectly, and for that alone the book holds a special place within my heart, so close, so relatable, so poignant.
I have to thank whatever fate that caused my teacher to make this an option for the assignment, that caused me to choose this book despite the very tempting alternative. I see this book as something more than just an assignment, but a book that helped me through this transition period, which is also possibly one of the toughest times in my life.
December 21, 2011
This book started with a bang, but lost impetus somewhere along the line. I loved her descriptions of Chinese immigrant family life. Her grandmother praising Father Government for the benefit she receives each fortnight. The excess of Australian society even in the late 70s when the authors early childhood occurs when seen by people who have endured war and hardship.The little Green Man was an eternal symbol of government existing to serve and protect. And any country that could have a little green flashing man was benign and wealthy beyond imagining.
Interesting to learn some cultural differences. That careful translated literally in Chinese means to have a small heart. Young Alice doesn't want to have a small heart. That lady was the most abhorred thing you could become because ladies were lazy bums who sat around wasting their husband's money and walked down the street with perfectly made-up mien visiting the jewellery stores to which my mother delivered her wares. She really describing wealthy idleness which has become the dream of white society, and possibly society more generally.
The book becomes less interesting in the latter stages when teenage Alice has her first boyfriend, and we get more of an internal dialogue. Still enjoyable on the whole, and I'm glad to have read it.
Interesting to learn some cultural differences. That careful translated literally in Chinese means to have a small heart. Young Alice doesn't want to have a small heart. That lady was the most abhorred thing you could become because ladies were lazy bums who sat around wasting their husband's money and walked down the street with perfectly made-up mien visiting the jewellery stores to which my mother delivered her wares. She really describing wealthy idleness which has become the dream of white society, and possibly society more generally.
The book becomes less interesting in the latter stages when teenage Alice has her first boyfriend, and we get more of an internal dialogue. Still enjoyable on the whole, and I'm glad to have read it.
January 23, 2019
I read this about the same time as The Fireflies of Autumn, and other tales of San Ginese, also a book by a writer whose family migrated to Australia and in part about the experience of migration.
Alice Pung's memoir tells the story of her Chinese-Cambodian refugee family as they work hard to build new lives in Australia, surrounded by many people from similar backgrounds.
I've written a bit more about it in my review of The Fireflies of Autumn, and other tales of San Ginese at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4....
Alice Pung's memoir tells the story of her Chinese-Cambodian refugee family as they work hard to build new lives in Australia, surrounded by many people from similar backgrounds.
I've written a bit more about it in my review of The Fireflies of Autumn, and other tales of San Ginese at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4....
January 16, 2012
First, a bit of background to my reading of this book. I grew up in a part of Sydney where there were many people of Asian descent. Those who were my age had often either been born in Australia to parents who were recent immigrants, or had come to Australia as children. Many of my friends were of Asian descent, from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I tended to see the similarities between my friends and me - they were, after all, my friends - and I often did not understand why they reacted to certain things so differently, especially in relation to their interactions and relationships with their families.
In the years since high school, I have grown to understand much more. Unpolished Gem allowed me to take another leap in my understanding of some of my friends. At the very least, this means that if Ms Pung is writing for the wider Australian audience, to give them an insight into the life of a certain section of the Australian community, she has nailed it. (I am quite curious to know if she has nailed the audience within the section of the Australian community she is writing about.)
Ms Pung's writing is impeccable. By this I mean not that her sentences and paragraphs are well-structured and grammatically correct, although they are that, too, but that Ms Pung's narrative allows the reader to step inside the book and, to a significant extent, empathise with her. The reader is, accordingly, able to understand Ms Pung's emotional reactions to the situations she describes. It was this which allowed me to come to a much better understanding about my friends than I had before. It is not that I think all - or, even, any - of my friends had precisely the same experiences as Ms Pung, but that, by understanding the background in Ms Pung's story, I was able to better imagine what might have been happening for my friends in similar situations.
Such an understanding is important to me personally, and may be important personally to many others. It is also important socially. Ms Pung's family has much in common, in terms of experiences and background, with many other Australians and their families - not only those who came to Australia at around the same time as, and in similar circumstances to, Ms Pung's family, but those who are coming to Australia now. In order to ensure that we can be an Australian community, as many of us as possible from as many parts of Australian society need to have some insight into other parts of our society. Unpolished Gem will help to increase the level of insight between communities.
Finally, this book is also an excellent story, rather than merely a piece of writing about what happened. As a result, this book is likely to be quite an enjoyable read for those who, like me, do not normally enjoy non-fiction and memoir writing as much as fiction.
In the years since high school, I have grown to understand much more. Unpolished Gem allowed me to take another leap in my understanding of some of my friends. At the very least, this means that if Ms Pung is writing for the wider Australian audience, to give them an insight into the life of a certain section of the Australian community, she has nailed it. (I am quite curious to know if she has nailed the audience within the section of the Australian community she is writing about.)
Ms Pung's writing is impeccable. By this I mean not that her sentences and paragraphs are well-structured and grammatically correct, although they are that, too, but that Ms Pung's narrative allows the reader to step inside the book and, to a significant extent, empathise with her. The reader is, accordingly, able to understand Ms Pung's emotional reactions to the situations she describes. It was this which allowed me to come to a much better understanding about my friends than I had before. It is not that I think all - or, even, any - of my friends had precisely the same experiences as Ms Pung, but that, by understanding the background in Ms Pung's story, I was able to better imagine what might have been happening for my friends in similar situations.
Such an understanding is important to me personally, and may be important personally to many others. It is also important socially. Ms Pung's family has much in common, in terms of experiences and background, with many other Australians and their families - not only those who came to Australia at around the same time as, and in similar circumstances to, Ms Pung's family, but those who are coming to Australia now. In order to ensure that we can be an Australian community, as many of us as possible from as many parts of Australian society need to have some insight into other parts of our society. Unpolished Gem will help to increase the level of insight between communities.
Finally, this book is also an excellent story, rather than merely a piece of writing about what happened. As a result, this book is likely to be quite an enjoyable read for those who, like me, do not normally enjoy non-fiction and memoir writing as much as fiction.
August 29, 2020
I've obviously come late to this book, which means I could see how influential Pung's memoir-style has been on other writers. Her breezy tone belies the darkness of much of her experiences, which both lets her explore intergenerational trauma without descending into misery porn and to create a book packed with cultural content that is accessible to an audience with little cultural background.
Having said that, coming late to the book also might mean it lacked the sense of fresh voice it carried when first published. I enjoyed the look into Footscray and the deft way that Pung navigates writing about difficult family dynamics. In particular, her relationship with her grandmother balances the depth of adoration of a child, with the knowing eyes of a more critical adult.
The latter part of the book concerns Pung's development of adult identity. This includes a relationship mired in tedium, and I found myself a little disengaged (as to be fair, in some ways did Pung). However, Pung is an interesting and assured writer, and I am quite looking forward now to her subsequent memoir about her father.
Having said that, coming late to the book also might mean it lacked the sense of fresh voice it carried when first published. I enjoyed the look into Footscray and the deft way that Pung navigates writing about difficult family dynamics. In particular, her relationship with her grandmother balances the depth of adoration of a child, with the knowing eyes of a more critical adult.
The latter part of the book concerns Pung's development of adult identity. This includes a relationship mired in tedium, and I found myself a little disengaged (as to be fair, in some ways did Pung). However, Pung is an interesting and assured writer, and I am quite looking forward now to her subsequent memoir about her father.
January 1, 2013
An incredible project, I am so admiring of this sort of memory work, where Pung makes sense of her childhood and family history with such deft and sensitively rendered narrative tension. The environments and experiences were so vivid I forgot I am not really a Chinese migrant.
I can't believe Pung hasn't been more widely accoladed for her work, hers is a stunning talent.
I can't believe Pung hasn't been more widely accoladed for her work, hers is a stunning talent.
May 2, 2011
Ceritanya tentang perbedaan budaya, kisah pribadi penulisnya waktu baru pindah dari Kamboja ke Australia, dari kecil hingga dia kuliah. Lucu sih, gampangannya orang udik dari desa yang pindah ke kota besar, banyak tingkah konyol. Contohnya waktu naik eskalator, mereka naik turun di eskalator pusat perbelanjaan Hightpoint, pria berusia 32 tahun, istrinya yang hamil delapan bulan, adik perempuannya yang berumur 27 tahun, dan nenek-nenek Asia yang mengenakan piama wol berwarna ungu. Waktu membeli makanan kaleng, yang ternyata murah-murah, setelah memasaknya dan tanpa sengaja melihat iklan di televisi, ternyata makanan yang mereka beli adalah makanan anjing! di hal. 13 ibu Alice berkata, " Wah, siapa yang percaya daging seenak ini untuk makanan anjing? betepa beruntungnya menjadi anjing di negara ini." HUEKS. Pengalaman lainnya adalah ketika teman bibinya mau berkunjung, dia salah flat, malah dikira seorang wanita panggilan. Nenek dan Ibunya yang tidak akur dimana ini membuat Alice menjadi seorang pembohong, bagaimana tidak? ketika bersama neneknya, dia selalu bertanya," Agheare, ibumu bicara apa tentang diriku kalau aku sedang tak ada?" lalu ketika bersama ibunya, " Agheare, apa kata nenekmu tentang diriku?" bagaimana tidak stress???? Cerita konyol lainnya kebiasaan Alice yang suka ngompol dan tidak berani bilang ke gurunya waktu kelas dua, ada juga cerita sedih waktu Alice dan Alexander adiknya pergi kerumah temannya Joanne, tapi sampe disana mereka tidak disambut dengan baik, mereka dilarang menyenderkan kepala ke sofa karena rambut mereka kutuan. Hubungan Alice dengan neneknya sangat dekat, waktu neneknya meninggal, Alice tetap menyimpan kasur yang sering mereka gunakan untuk tidur bersama sampai besar. Nenek Alice salah satu orang yang mempunyai banyak kepercayaan, memuja banyak dewa. Buddha, Dewi Welas Asih, Dewa Bisnis, dia sangat cerewet sekali tidak kalah dengan ibunya Alice. Dan bagian yang paling aku suka adalah kisah cinta Alice :) ketika Alice mulai masuk universitas ada seorang pemuda, Michael, dia jatuh cinta pada Alice dan waktu menembaknya Alice berperang dengan pikirannya, antara mau menerima atau menolak, yang akhirnya ditolak tapi tidak lama kemudian setelah sering bersama toh dia menerima juga. Yang lucu itu adalah waktu mereka pacaran mendapat pengawasan ketat dari ibunya, ada jam malam, gerak gerik mereka tidak bebas, kadang mencuri-curi untuk ciuman. Untung menegtahui akhirnya, sebaiknya kita tanya langsung ke penulisnya, apakah akhirnya dia menikah dengan Michael? ;p
Ada kalimat favoritku, hal. 102 waktu ayah Alice berkata, "Keluarga itu seperti seekor ular, kalau kepala ular lurus, maka seluruh tubuhnya akan ikut lurus. Tetapi, kalau kepalanya bengkok, maka tubuhnya akan bengkok-bengkok seperti gingseng dan celakalah dia."
Ceritanya lumayan, agak bosen juga sih diawal, hanya kejadian membeli makanan kaleng dan waktu tidak diterima di rumah temannya karena Alice punya kutu di rambutnya yang membuat saya tertarik, setelah itu flat. Mandeg ditengah, saya ganti bacaan lain, sampai Alice dewasa dan bertemu dengan Michael, membuat saya senyam senyum sendiri dan bersemangat untuk menyelesaikannya. Covernya cantik, ada typo beberapa, dan yang membuat saya binggung disini tidak memakai nama Alice tapi Angheare, hanya beberapa kali nama Alice digunakan (?)
Berbicara sedikit tentang pengarangnya, Alice Pung seorang penulis dan pengacara (sesuai yang dia ceritakan di buku, waktu kuliah dia mengambil jurusan hukum), karyanya dimuat di Meanjin, Good Wekend, dan The Monthly. Dunia Alice atau judul aslinya Unpolished Gem, buku pertamanya ini pada tahun 2007 mendapatkan penghargaan Newcomer of the year Award dari industri buku di Australia dan lolos seleksi NSW Premier Literaty Award dan Booksellers' Choice Award.
3 sayap untuk Alice dan keluarganya yang udik :)
Note: Buku ini saya dapatkan dari menang kuis di twitter, waktu itu pertanyaanya adalah, "apa pengalamanmu yang paling berkesan waktu kecil?" :))
Ada kalimat favoritku, hal. 102 waktu ayah Alice berkata, "Keluarga itu seperti seekor ular, kalau kepala ular lurus, maka seluruh tubuhnya akan ikut lurus. Tetapi, kalau kepalanya bengkok, maka tubuhnya akan bengkok-bengkok seperti gingseng dan celakalah dia."
Ceritanya lumayan, agak bosen juga sih diawal, hanya kejadian membeli makanan kaleng dan waktu tidak diterima di rumah temannya karena Alice punya kutu di rambutnya yang membuat saya tertarik, setelah itu flat. Mandeg ditengah, saya ganti bacaan lain, sampai Alice dewasa dan bertemu dengan Michael, membuat saya senyam senyum sendiri dan bersemangat untuk menyelesaikannya. Covernya cantik, ada typo beberapa, dan yang membuat saya binggung disini tidak memakai nama Alice tapi Angheare, hanya beberapa kali nama Alice digunakan (?)
Berbicara sedikit tentang pengarangnya, Alice Pung seorang penulis dan pengacara (sesuai yang dia ceritakan di buku, waktu kuliah dia mengambil jurusan hukum), karyanya dimuat di Meanjin, Good Wekend, dan The Monthly. Dunia Alice atau judul aslinya Unpolished Gem, buku pertamanya ini pada tahun 2007 mendapatkan penghargaan Newcomer of the year Award dari industri buku di Australia dan lolos seleksi NSW Premier Literaty Award dan Booksellers' Choice Award.
3 sayap untuk Alice dan keluarganya yang udik :)
Note: Buku ini saya dapatkan dari menang kuis di twitter, waktu itu pertanyaanya adalah, "apa pengalamanmu yang paling berkesan waktu kecil?" :))
November 21, 2008
When I first started reading this book, I thought that there was so much I could relate with growing up Asian and living in Australia. But then I found Alice really quite annoying towards the end of this book when she talks about her relationship with the Anglo Aussie guy she starts dating. I just want to tell her to get over it, being Asian doesn't mean that it needs to get in the way of living your life. It obviously wasn't an issue with that guy and he went out of his way to adjust to the "Asian-ness" of her family and he still liked her.
There were a lot of stereotyping in this book which started to bore me. For example the old Asian woman at the markets bargaining down to the last penny (we all know that Asian women do this so nothing new there) and the fact that she ends up being a lawyer. Okay, so she probably chose to be a lawyer (and this is an autobiography) but it just adds to that whole stereotyping of Asians only being interested in pursuing careers in law, medicine and accounting.
There were some highlights. For example, when she describes how the way her grandmother and mother talk to each other. How every comment contains "bones". That is a very Chinese saying (and a very bitchy Chinese way to be). Basically, it means that there are underlying messages in what is actually said (never good). Her mother and grandmother's relationship sounds like my mother's and my late-grandmother's.
There were a lot of stereotyping in this book which started to bore me. For example the old Asian woman at the markets bargaining down to the last penny (we all know that Asian women do this so nothing new there) and the fact that she ends up being a lawyer. Okay, so she probably chose to be a lawyer (and this is an autobiography) but it just adds to that whole stereotyping of Asians only being interested in pursuing careers in law, medicine and accounting.
There were some highlights. For example, when she describes how the way her grandmother and mother talk to each other. How every comment contains "bones". That is a very Chinese saying (and a very bitchy Chinese way to be). Basically, it means that there are underlying messages in what is actually said (never good). Her mother and grandmother's relationship sounds like my mother's and my late-grandmother's.
December 15, 2014
Saya sukakan buku ini. Mungkin kerana saat ia diperkenalkan, saya memang mencari-cari bahan bacaan santai untuk dibaca kerana hanya membawa buku-buku ilmiah untuk rujukan kerja.
Tambahan pula setelah mula dibaca, ianya sangat relevan dengan persekitaran di mana saya berada ketika itu yang turut melatari kisah yang ditulis. Sekurang-kurangnya kerana ianya dalam daerah yang sama, di Melbourne. Jadi, ada nama-nama tempat yang saya maklumi, nama pasaraya yang turut saya kunjungi cawangannya.
Kisah tentang kehidupan imigran ke Australia bagi meneruskan kelangsungan hidup yang diharapkan lebih cerah peluangnya berbanding di tanah tumpah darah sendiri. Justeru nama penulis sendiri iaitu Alice, diberikan oleh ayahnya kerana beliau dilahirkan di Australia yang dianggap sebagai 'wonderland' kepada mereka sekeluarga.
Cerita dalam buku ini juga sedikit membantu saya memahami latar budaya dan sejarah kehidupan masyarakat di Australia, kerana di pejabat tempat saya bertugas sementara juga terdapat mereka yang ibu bapanya berasal daripada negara lain.
Gaya penceritaan Alice sangat menarik dan santai dan saya amat suka bila beliau bercerita tentang neneknya yang ternyata sangat berpengaruh dalam kehidupan beliau kemudiannya.
Sedikit terkilan kerana kisah Alice dan Michael tidak jelas kesudahannya dalam buku ini. Mungkin itu daya penarik untuk kita membaca pula buku beliau berikutnya.
Tambahan pula setelah mula dibaca, ianya sangat relevan dengan persekitaran di mana saya berada ketika itu yang turut melatari kisah yang ditulis. Sekurang-kurangnya kerana ianya dalam daerah yang sama, di Melbourne. Jadi, ada nama-nama tempat yang saya maklumi, nama pasaraya yang turut saya kunjungi cawangannya.
Kisah tentang kehidupan imigran ke Australia bagi meneruskan kelangsungan hidup yang diharapkan lebih cerah peluangnya berbanding di tanah tumpah darah sendiri. Justeru nama penulis sendiri iaitu Alice, diberikan oleh ayahnya kerana beliau dilahirkan di Australia yang dianggap sebagai 'wonderland' kepada mereka sekeluarga.
Cerita dalam buku ini juga sedikit membantu saya memahami latar budaya dan sejarah kehidupan masyarakat di Australia, kerana di pejabat tempat saya bertugas sementara juga terdapat mereka yang ibu bapanya berasal daripada negara lain.
Gaya penceritaan Alice sangat menarik dan santai dan saya amat suka bila beliau bercerita tentang neneknya yang ternyata sangat berpengaruh dalam kehidupan beliau kemudiannya.
Sedikit terkilan kerana kisah Alice dan Michael tidak jelas kesudahannya dalam buku ini. Mungkin itu daya penarik untuk kita membaca pula buku beliau berikutnya.
January 25, 2016
I loved every single minute of this book BUTTTT the ending was so awkward it didn't feel like the end.
June 27, 2022
An interesting, poignant, sometimes humorous memoir about the author up to the age of twenty and her grandmother and mother. The author’s parents immigrated to Australia before the author was born. In Melbourne, Australia her father ended up running an electrical store.
This book was first published in 2006.
This book was first published in 2006.
March 11, 2020
The passages that touched on family culture, tensions and loyalty in this community resonated with me and led me to examine and compare against the dynamics in my family. I wasn’t too convinced on and compelled by the author’s voice, however I did listen to this as an audiobook and I thought that impacted upon my experience of the narrative as a memoir negatively.
December 23, 2023
It was pretty good for a school book, but I quickly became bored when reading it. Maybe if I had read it for my own reading purposes then I may have a different view of it.
May 4, 2017
4.5 stars rounded up to 5.
Reading this book made me feel some sort of connection between me and Alice Pung. After all, she has sent me a message before, 4 months ago:
You thought I was joking.
So yes, I have talked to her. But even more than that, she lived in the same area as me (she lived in Footscray while I live in Sunshine North, which are both of Melbourne's western suburbs and about a 20-minute drive away from each other), and in FACT, she went to the same school as me! (Well, actually, I'm not even sure if her campus was part of my school back then--there were two schools near each other and they thought it would be a good idea if they just merged into ONE school with two separate campuses, and the smaller campus would only have Year 7 to Year 9 girls, but I'm not sure if they merged before or after she went there... oh well, she still went to the same campus as me!) This just made me feel a stronger connection to her as I read this book, knowing she has seen the same places and encountered the same types of people as me.
This book was funny, down-to-earth, and intelligently written. Alice Pung is such a magnificent writer and I hope she comes out with more books, because she is one to watch out for.
Reading this book made me feel some sort of connection between me and Alice Pung. After all, she has sent me a message before, 4 months ago:
You thought I was joking.
So yes, I have talked to her. But even more than that, she lived in the same area as me (she lived in Footscray while I live in Sunshine North, which are both of Melbourne's western suburbs and about a 20-minute drive away from each other), and in FACT, she went to the same school as me! (Well, actually, I'm not even sure if her campus was part of my school back then--there were two schools near each other and they thought it would be a good idea if they just merged into ONE school with two separate campuses, and the smaller campus would only have Year 7 to Year 9 girls, but I'm not sure if they merged before or after she went there... oh well, she still went to the same campus as me!) This just made me feel a stronger connection to her as I read this book, knowing she has seen the same places and encountered the same types of people as me.
This book was funny, down-to-earth, and intelligently written. Alice Pung is such a magnificent writer and I hope she comes out with more books, because she is one to watch out for.
September 18, 2018
Alice Pungs Unpolished Gem is more like an unpolished lung, with days in the mines spent toiling away at this ‘Gem’ only to find that you have lung cancer from the hard labor. This book is something we had to do for an assignment, and to be honest I found this book so boring and mundane that I struggled to gather quotes in this book without taking a hard look at my life choices and how this happened. The language is fine with the novel, although there isn’t really a sense of direction and everything is kind of stacked up so it’ll go from one thing to another with no Segway, just randomly hopping into the next subject. A real life comparison is bungee jumping, where you’ll go straight down at a rapid pace, stop for a little bit, then bounce back up to backtrack to something that hasn’t been explained well or something of that sense. To be honest, this review is just going off the one chapter I remember because my mind has decided to not remember this books plot and classify it among things like tantrums I had when I was 4, although, I was having an internal mid life crisis when I read this book.
Thank you for reading this very kind, well thought, review into the 38 year olds Lawyer ‘Alice ‘Agheare’ Pung’ book ‘Unpolished Gem’, in which the title makes not that much sense and is literally referred to only once in the quote.
Thank you for reading this very kind, well thought, review into the 38 year olds Lawyer ‘Alice ‘Agheare’ Pung’ book ‘Unpolished Gem’, in which the title makes not that much sense and is literally referred to only once in the quote.
March 5, 2014
Cerita tentang sang penulis sendiri, keluarga Cambodia yang pindah serta menetap di Australia. Kondisi negara asal mereka yang luluh lantak akibat perseteruan perang membuat mereka memutuskan untuk mencari kehidupan di negara asing.
Alice terperangkap dalam perbedaan budaya,budaya asia didalam keluarganya dan budaya barat dilingkungan sekolah,teman dan setelah melewati halaman rumahnya.
Banyak kelucuan-kelucuan yang terjadi karena perbedaan dengan kondisi negara yang mereka sebelumnya, sekaligus kejadian yang mengharukan, bagaimana keluarga Alice berusaha menggenggam kehidupan baru yang lebih baik.
Namun sayang, kehidupan Alice berubah setelah remaja. Depresi menyerang Alice, kehidupan tak lagi indah hingga Alice bertemu pemuda "white ghost" yang berhasil menawan hatinya. Tak mengherankan sebenarnya karena ibu Alice juga pernah mengalami hal yang sama. Tapi yang mengherankan justru kenapa Alice bisa memahami dan menghadapi situasi saat ibunya depresi dan Alice malah depresi bukan karena itu...Bingung deskripsinya..hehe
April 21, 2009
When I finished reading this book last night I was left with an odd feeling because it contains no author information whatsoever. I don't understand why we only get this author's life thus far, what made her write this book, as compelling as the narrative is, I missed her motivation. Maybe I need to take a closer look at it.
The author's story about a family who flees Cambodia and settles in Australia is another story about a young person caught between cultures. Even though she grows up in Australia, she doesn't consider herself an Australian because she's not a "white ghost," she is Chinese and lives according to the social norms imposed on her by her family's culture.
Her story moves along quite easily until she turns 17 and suffers from crippling anxiety and depression which took me by surprise even though it shouldn't have because her mother suffers similar symptoms for a while. This would be a great book club discussion and I plan to suggest it to my group.
The author's story about a family who flees Cambodia and settles in Australia is another story about a young person caught between cultures. Even though she grows up in Australia, she doesn't consider herself an Australian because she's not a "white ghost," she is Chinese and lives according to the social norms imposed on her by her family's culture.
Her story moves along quite easily until she turns 17 and suffers from crippling anxiety and depression which took me by surprise even though it shouldn't have because her mother suffers similar symptoms for a while. This would be a great book club discussion and I plan to suggest it to my group.
May 10, 2015
Interesting book! It talks about Cambodia under Pol Pot's regime and the horror of it. It talks about migrants' lives and the hardships they go through. It talks about beautiful Melbourne (to be more precise, diverse Footscray). It talks about many things. What I like the most is how the author explains her life with her Asian parents and relatives - it surely is different from Western parents and relatives. But why I love this book the most is, because it reminds me of my second hometown Melbourne - it feels so close to my heart. Thank you Larry and Cynthia for this book, Australia wouldn't be that great without you guys in it.
August 8, 2016
I enjoyed this because it gave me a brief insight into what it is like for people to resettle their lives in a foreign country, I also enjoyed it because Alice and her family lived in Melbourne. I'm not sure why but the most memorable part for me was the evening meal that was not quiet what it seemed.
November 8, 2018
Alice Pung is a remarkable Australian talent. I would read just about anything she has written.
April 21, 2019
Quite raw and a bit rushed but I really liked her writing. Very astute about growing up in a collision of cultures as a 1st generation child of immigrants. Great book, one to watch.
October 8, 2022
written so beautifully and could really lowkey relate (but beginning and ending of book were clearly of a different calibre to middle hence 4 stars)
October 24, 2024
Alice Pung was born in Footscray, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia just after her ethnic Chinese grandmother, her parents and an aunt had arrived there after fleeing the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Australia had given up its `Whites only’ policy ten years before so they found themselves welcomed in a diverse community of Asians embracing their new freedom from the oppression that had forced them to flee. This memoir recounts with sensitivity and humour how this Cambodian/Chenese family explore the challenge of adapting to the new while clinging on to their identity and culture.
Alice is so named because her father thinks that Australia is a wonderland, and for them in many ways it is. Pung’s description of the local Asian market vividly illustrates the wonder of the abundance available to the family. Pung’s mother and grandmother express their delight constantly at many aspects of Australian life. They let out delighted `Wahs’ at crossing lights that allow them to cross the road safely. “No one walks like they have to hide”, they can amble, no Khmer Rouge soldiers drive people out into the country. Her grandmother wonders at the benevolence of a government that gives her a monthly pension.
The family is industrious. Pung’s father has had many jobs from factory overseer to barefoot doctor to goldsmith and welder. He saves up money to buy a Retravision franchise selling electrical goods and Pung’s mother takes over his goldsmithing, working long hours to make gold jewelry for local stores. Pung meanwhile has to take care of her younger siblings. When the youngest falls off the bed while Pung isn’t looking she is so overwhelmed with guilt that she considers suicide.
Living in a community where many speak Chinese, the burden of assimilation falls most heavily on the children particularly when they reach school age. Dressed in mao jackets and pajama pants Pung stands out in a school where the girls wear dresses. Pung is so fearful of the teachers that she is afraid to ask to use the toilet and so often wets herself. When she and her siblings get lice they are shunned even more. Pung delicately and with humor shows the reader how they navigate these challenges.
Pung excelled academically but the pressure on her to achieve drove her into depression. She becomes a teenager torn between two worlds. She wants to join in teen social life but is limited by the restrictions placed on her as a Chinese daughter. It is only when she wins a scholarship to university that she has a chance to break away from the narrow expectations of her family.
What makes this memoir so rich is that it doesn’t just describe Pung’s coming of age, but it also tells the backstory of her mother and grandmother. Their flight from Cambodia to Vietnam and finally to safety in Australia. You understand from these stories why keeping the family together and securing a stable living are values they impress on the next generations. It also explains why Pung and her generation struggle to combine filial duty with creating a life for themselves in today’s world. It is about a particular family, but its lessons have something for us all. This memoir is also a reminder of what most of us are able to take for granted.
Alice is so named because her father thinks that Australia is a wonderland, and for them in many ways it is. Pung’s description of the local Asian market vividly illustrates the wonder of the abundance available to the family. Pung’s mother and grandmother express their delight constantly at many aspects of Australian life. They let out delighted `Wahs’ at crossing lights that allow them to cross the road safely. “No one walks like they have to hide”, they can amble, no Khmer Rouge soldiers drive people out into the country. Her grandmother wonders at the benevolence of a government that gives her a monthly pension.
The family is industrious. Pung’s father has had many jobs from factory overseer to barefoot doctor to goldsmith and welder. He saves up money to buy a Retravision franchise selling electrical goods and Pung’s mother takes over his goldsmithing, working long hours to make gold jewelry for local stores. Pung meanwhile has to take care of her younger siblings. When the youngest falls off the bed while Pung isn’t looking she is so overwhelmed with guilt that she considers suicide.
Living in a community where many speak Chinese, the burden of assimilation falls most heavily on the children particularly when they reach school age. Dressed in mao jackets and pajama pants Pung stands out in a school where the girls wear dresses. Pung is so fearful of the teachers that she is afraid to ask to use the toilet and so often wets herself. When she and her siblings get lice they are shunned even more. Pung delicately and with humor shows the reader how they navigate these challenges.
Pung excelled academically but the pressure on her to achieve drove her into depression. She becomes a teenager torn between two worlds. She wants to join in teen social life but is limited by the restrictions placed on her as a Chinese daughter. It is only when she wins a scholarship to university that she has a chance to break away from the narrow expectations of her family.
What makes this memoir so rich is that it doesn’t just describe Pung’s coming of age, but it also tells the backstory of her mother and grandmother. Their flight from Cambodia to Vietnam and finally to safety in Australia. You understand from these stories why keeping the family together and securing a stable living are values they impress on the next generations. It also explains why Pung and her generation struggle to combine filial duty with creating a life for themselves in today’s world. It is about a particular family, but its lessons have something for us all. This memoir is also a reminder of what most of us are able to take for granted.
December 26, 2024
This story is told in a way that focuses less on specific events in Pung's life, and more on the larger, overarching concerns and trepidations she went through. This is seen in its structure, where it jumps from time period to time period with very little fanfare, switching from childhood to teenage years in an instant. On the one hand, this does give the book a disjointed quality. However, I think ultimately it works in the text's favour because it allows us to dive right into the meat of the story- to tackle the profound struggles Pung depicts head-on. It also serves as a fantastic representation of how her own life is so rigid and controlled, and, through her viewpoint, so lackadaisical, that the moments blend together. Speaking of her struggles, the way Pung writes her inner psyche is phenomenal. It's so unabashed, so bold and personal, giving voice to an experience that I could in some ways relate to and in other ways was deeply touched to experience vicariously. Her monologues about how cultural expectations, formed from generations of superstition and patriarchal oppression, impacted her are so revealing and poignant. The connections between the monologues and the flashbacks to the experiences of those before her in Cambodia serve to enhance this feeling of being trapped in a systemic fight to control the lives of women. Additionally, the portraits Pung paints of her grandmother and mother, both going through their own tribulations, are vivid and touching, and cement the book's themes about tradition and the immigrant experience. One critique I would have would be that the boyfriend section, especially how it ends, felt a bit tacked-on. Though it did add to the book's themes about Pung feeling restricted from her parents' controlling expectations of her- expectations which are in turn perpetuated by the wider community- I do feel like it ended too suddenly for my taste. By this I mean I think it should have been written more conclusively. Though the epilogue does provide a beautiful conclusion, it is unconnected to the boyfriend plotline and so doesn't solve that issue for me. Still, this book remains a searing triumph and a courageous depiction of complex and important issues.
September 18, 2018
I found the book very boring because it was just one event after the other; not very entertaining. I had to read the book for a school essay but but it was very difficult to be engaged with the novel. Nearing the end of the book, it started to get more entertaining, but it took courage to get through the first boring part. The book was good at coveying cultural connections (which was what my essay was about) an made you have a lot of empathy for Alice pung - I have seen some other comments saying this as well.
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