The Asianization of Australia - reflections by an Asian-Australian

For most of my life, the biggest part of being “Chinese Australian” has been proving the second half of that hybrid identity. Cumulatively, I've spent thousands of hours learning what it means and how to be an Australian, and that effort always felt wasted whenever I thought white Aussies were writing me off on appearance as 'just another chink.' From the school yard cricket pitch to Czech backpacker hostels and Australia Day gatherings in Washington DC, whenever in the company of Caucasian Australians, I've often been compelled to prove--just that little bit more--how much I belonged. On my most recent trip back to Australia--eight years since the last visit, 13 years since I'd originally moved away--I felt that long dormant need to prove my bonafides rise once more, hours before I even left American soil. 

Sitting at an empty, sterile gate within the exhausted bowels of LAX, I was soon joined by a group of squabbling retirees who had been RVing around the States, as ocker as meat pies. Immediately, part of me eagerly wanted to launch into blokey mateship with the one sitting closest to me. But this time, another voice inside my head stirred. 

“So what if they think you're just another Asian? Who cares? You know who you are!” self-assured and multi-cultural Mark admonished. 

“Yeah, you're probably right,” admitted Aussie flag-waving lapdog Mark, and it felt like a small moment of self-growth on the identity front. No longer fretting over acceptance into the cultural clubhouse, my years of travel and work had shaped me into a slew of terms that nativists love to hate: 'third culture kid', 'post-national'…God forbid, perhaps even a 'global citizen.' In recent years, in response to the inevitable question of “Do you feel more Australian/Chinese/American at this point?”, I have even come up with a tongue-in-cheek percentage breakdown: 

“49 percent Aussie, 49 percent American, a smidge Chinese.”

And yet, traveling around Australia over the last three weeks, I felt that old urge to prove my Aussie-ness to white Australians lingering, rising momentarily from the pit of my gut to wrestle with my nobler self. Irrational, unnecessary, perhaps even a little pathetic, it would manifest itself in a slightly-heavier Aussie accent when speaking to staff at the museum counter, or as a cultural reference dropped within earshot at a hipster cafe. In not-so-subtle code, it proclaimed: “Don't confuse me for one of those FOBs*...I'm one of you guys too!”

The truth is that Australia is 'Asianizing,' and increasingly rapidly (the 2006 census had Asians at 7%, versus 1.1% in 1976). There were times as I wandered through downtown Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane where it felt palpable, with new Asian districts, Chinese businessmen, Korean tourists, and Indian cabbies. It seems inevitable: a large, wealthy island of 20 million people sitting at the bottom of the continent, with several billion people above them, eager for a piece of the pie. I asked a friend, a progressive White Melbournite in his early thirties, what he made of the most recent influx--of mostly wealthy mainland Chinese--into the country. 

“People have to accept that Australia is part of Asia, and that eventually White Australians will be the  ethnic minority,” he told me. This sounded like a radical vision of the country's future, quite startling to imagine, even to me. “We have to start considering all the benefits they bring to Australia from their own cultures too.”

“But what do you think the average White Australian makes of this scenario?” I asked.

“Oh they're totally against it. They want to keep Asians out.”

I'm not sure what general opinion is, but an actively anti-Asian policy is not new by any means. The 'White Australia' policy actively strived to keep Asians out of the country until basically 1966, not dissimilar to the US Chinese Exclusion Act, which ran from 1882-1943. My family grew up in an environment of brazenly open discrimination. My mother was not served at the news agency, we were accused of eating dog while riding a hotel elevator.  Mine was an assimilatory country town, where epithets flew thick and fast, and the promotion of multicultural identity fell on small-minded ears. And while it's certainly somewhat easier to get by in metropolitan Australia, where most Asians reside, a friend from Sydney has regaled me with similar tales of racism during her childhood. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and while nine times out of ten their behavior suggests ignorance over malice, too often it has been the latter.

Which is why I am grateful to have spent some of my formative years in the United States, which has gone through its fair share of racial tension, but at this point has traversed so many generations of immigration that I think today's American identity is an ethnically ambiguous one. Nobody questions the American-ness of Tiger Woods, or Jennifer Lopez, or Margaret Cho. By comparison, the images of the archetypal Australian coalesce far more homogenously: a bronzed and blonde-haired Elle Macpherson, the swarthy tradesman/Russell Crowe, the crocodile hunter…all of them white, largely British in descent. In America, I've never felt my race make an iota of difference to how I am accepted into society; in Australia it has always seemed at best a point of distinction, if not tension, at worst directly antagonistic. I think this will change over time. Already, I've noticed how much more race-inclusive and open-minded my generation of Australians are, orders of magnitude beyond their parents and grandparents.

Walking around Fitzroy--Melbourne's bohemian district--I passed two young African boys outside what appeared to be a largely East African housing project. They were discussing how to avoid their mothers' wrath while continuing to play outside, in deliciously diphthonged, unmistakably thick Aussie brogues. I imagined my own brother and I sounding similar at their age. Across Australia's waves of immigration--Aboriginal, English, Irish, South European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and most recently African--several uniting threads seemed to have helped weave its diverse makeup together. Undoubtedly, sports, meat pies, and a love for the beach have played their part. But more vital, I'd argue, have been the values of democratic representation, egalitarianism, hard work, camaraderie, and most importantly, fairness. Those are the values I treasure most about being Australian, and I am confident that they will live on, regardless of the country's ethnic makeup.

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*FOB: slang acronym for “Fresh Off the Boat”, used to describe immigrants that have arrived from a foreign nation and have not yet assimilated into the host nation's culture, language, and behaviour. (Wikipedia)

Interesting article on Australia's Asianization: http://www.academia.edu/1355630/Australia_China_and_Asian_Regionalism_Navigating_Distant_Proximity

New neighbors: An Iraqi family plays basketball

NB: I'm currently completing a summer internship in Des Moines, Iowa, where this post takes place.*

Jaycee Park is your typical suburban neighborhood park. There is a kid's playground set, a tennis court and a basketball court. A walking path encircling the main green space welcomes couples walking dogs and 8 year olds racing bicycles. The park is tucked away in a quiet neighborhood of West Des Moines, off of streets lined with shiny, sensible cars and immaculate lawns.

I'd gone to the park this Sunday early evening to work on my jumpshot. Mid-way through my routine, a small boy split off from his friends and asked if he could shoot with me. I ignored my initial selfish desire to retain the hoop all to myself and began feeding the ball to him as he began to shoot.

After a while, partly to pass the boredom, I struck up a conversation with him. In contemporary American society, being a grown man conversing with a small boy in a park presents a number of challenges. For example: I thought it better not to ask the question "So do you live around here?"

Instead, I inquired as to his age, guessing about five. As a high school swim teacher, I'd acquired an uncanny gift at correctly guessing childrens' ages, one that it seems can be lost rather quickly.

"Eight," he replied, shooting up another air ball. "But next year I'm going to be ten...I mean, nine."

He had an olive complexion and thick, curly brown hair that was styled in a semi-mohawk. I would have guessed Mediterranean, and to satiate my curiosity, decided to approach the question of ethnic extraction gently.

"How many languages do you speak?" I asked him, in English.

"Two," he answered immediately. "Arabic and Spanish!"

"Which one do you speak at home?" I responded, and gradually I learned that the boy was from Iraq, and that he'd been in America for two years, and that he preferred American food over Iraqi. When I asked if he was from Baghdad, he paused, slightly startled.

"How'd you know that?!" he exclaimed. "You know everything!"

Eventually, I grew tired of practicing my rebounding, and when my young friend told me that he was, in fact, a soccer player, I managed to send him racing off to the bespectacled teenage girl who'd just arrived at the park, no doubt hoping to work on her individual soccer skills. He scurried off immediately, and, in polite Midwestern fashion, she accepted his request to join her.

Minutes later, the boy's family approached the court. Two middle-aged women and a younger woman, all in hijabs, as well as their two husbands, and two more children. They asked to join me, and began to take turns shooting, amidst much warm laughter and Arabic commentary, interspersed with nouns like "left hand", "shoot" and "slam dunk." As they left, I asked how long they'd been in the US.

"Two months for them, but three years for me," said the middle aged lady with the best English (perhaps her nephew had confused the words 'year' and 'month'). I then tried to explain to them how I'd previously worked for an international development NGO that ran microfinance and water sanitation projects in their home country, with little success.

"Like a corporation?" the lady had asked, after we'd whittled down that it was not military.

"More like a charity," I offered, and the lady nodded without expression. I suppose I was hoping for a spark of recognition--perhaps even a dash of gratitude--but none was forthcoming, perhaps due to language, perhaps due to rightful ambivalence. But as the family walked over to join their fearless son's football game, I thought of how nice it must be for them, to live here in a quiet suburb of Des Moines, Iowa, where their sons play basketball with strangers without fear and the biggest safety threat appears to be farming accidents. They and I are both immigrants, both from foreign cultures, learning about life in a Midwestern town. And as vastly different as our origins and futures might be, I enjoyed the thought that these new neighbors and I were living out a small piece of the American dream together, at leisure in this quiet neighborhood park, against a gently fading summer dusk.

Pic courtesy of Remix Athletics - http://remixathletics.com/news/?p=1124 - via Google Images.

Social Enterprise toolbelt

I have seen this before but it bears sharing: SE toolbelt looks to be an outstanding resource for those interested in social enterprise. It offers a wide range of educational and practical resources that will be beneficial to anyone ranging from newly interested to experienced practitioners. Hat tip to Social Edge.

Check it out!

http://www.setoolbelt.org/

Orientation recap, plus what makes work meaningful?

Last week, first year Fuqua students completed our orientation, a rambunctious, energy-intensive three-day marathon that served to introduce us to the curious world of the Daytime MBA. It was performed in the playful guise of an extended pep rally. Our 2013 Class of 444 students, having been split into six sections, donned color-coded t-shirts and threw ourselves into rowdy cheers, equipped with horns, vuvuzelas and cow bells. It was interesting observing how rapidly the class transformed from a group of nervous strangers into a wild, thunderous mass of competing tribes. My own, Section 2, chose to remain (relatively) quiet amidst the cheers of the other groups while in the auditorium, but sprang to life during the 'Section Olympics' (see pictures, courtesy of Enlin Jin), sweeping almost all of the events.

Breaking the group into sections makes sense of course, given the overwhelming size of the entire class, but over the course of orientation, I found myself somewhat torn at my natural tendency to gravitate towards only those in my own section. With so many remarkable, amazing new people to meet and befriend and gain 'strategic networks' with, why did we have to limit ourselves to the random one sixth that we were assigned together with? I heard from several second year students that socializing with those outside our section happens quite organically over the course of the degree. I certainly hope so.

--

Today, in our Leadership, Ethics and Organization class, we discussed motivations and incentives. We discussed five intrinsic motivating factors that compel many people at work: (here's a different but related article on the subject)

Meaningfulness
1. Skill variety - using different skills in work
2. Task identity - seeing the whole process and final product
3. Task significance - making a useful contribution to others

Responsibility
4. Autonomy

Knowledge of results
5. Feedback

This resonated strongly with me. When I was younger, I used to focus heavily on the sense of task significance--making a useful contribution to others--and neglected to consider the importance of other aspects. As such, I naively believed that working in the social sector would somehow be inherently more satisfying than working in the private sector, that the non-profiteer serving a noble cause would by default be more fulfilled than the corporate 'soulless drone.'

While it took me a while to realize, I began to see that work satisfaction is far more complex than that. Indeed, serving a noble cause with the NGOs that I worked for did provide a certain level of satisfaction. But it didn't necessarily make up for any of the other elements mentioned above. It reminds me of a conversation I had with an investment banker friend in Hong Kong, who described how much he loved his job, despite the lengthy hours.

"I get to fly around the world and have in-depth conversations with incredibly smart people," he explained. "What's not to like about that?"

I had to agree with him. It sounded far more intellectually stimulating than my previous positions. Conversations with folks such as him thankfully opened my mind to the many facets of a satisfying, varied career, helping me to consider my possibilities with a more open mind.

Moreover, a noble cause is not limited to the social sector. There are few companies these days who would not lay claim to having a mission of some significance. And while their employees might view such claims with varying levels of belief or cynicism, the private sector's contribution to society is unequivocally clear.

HSM Bootcamp plus the Fuqua's CASE Center

This week I'm participating in Fuqua's Health Sector Management (HSM) 'Bootcamp', an intensive one-week primer on the healthcare industry. It's a broad-ranging, concentrated event, filled with all-star speakers, hundreds of pages of reading and my first case study group assignment (surely the first of many!). Fuqua offers a certificate in Health Sector Management, described as one of the best in the country, and so for someone like myself--coming in from the social sector with little private sector experience--it struck me as a great way to develop more specific industry knowledge.

Sadly my HSM involves far less singing

That it certainly will, but in the mean time, I'm playing catch-up with a group of classmates with years of experience in the field. While they analyze high-end healthcare reform details, I'm taking note of acronyms and phrases and trying to establish a foundational knowledge while keeping up with current debates. I'm lucky to have had good health to date, and been spared the pain of (and subsequent familiarity with) loved ones with chronic illness. Thus, my prior personal exposure to the healthcare industry has been minimal. My evenings, in between scanning endless reports, have subsequently involved googling terms like "catastrophic care" and, embarrassingly enough, even basic terms like "Rx."

My experience with healthcare comes from past experience in the advocacy field during my college years, campaigning for greater global HIV/AIDS funding and supporting youth rights. Through a passion for such causes, I acquired a rights-based perspective on the industry, lobbying for access to generic AIDS drugs and sharing in the emotion and passion of HIV-positive activists. Now, sitting in an auditorium listening to the Chief Global Strategy Officer for the world's leading generic manufacturer, I find myself studying the concerns from the other side of the table. As you might guess, it feels entirely different. Like two different languages. There is a notable absence of the emotion and 'fuzziness' I had previously been used to, replaced instead by graphs and data and talk of acquisitions and entry strategies.

But it's not all coldblooded profitability and market strategy. Following that talk is one on healthcare quality improvement by a Duke cardiologist. Similarly, his talk is filled with charts and numbers, from a dizzying array of medical studies. But at the same time, he infuses his talk with a passion for making sick people healthy and helping to solve America's complex healthcare problems.

Activists from the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa

Activists are by nature very focused on action, but in my experience it was actions targeting media coverage and pressuring politicians. The activists that I admired most tended to be those who were doctors (or medical students) who combined the rhetoric with the technical skills to actually provide help.
Sadly, a longstanding aversion to blood swayed me away from medicine from a young age (perhaps to my father's chagrin). But seeing the sort of impact that these practitioner/academics/teachers before me make on a daily basis is truly inspiring. I hope one day to be capable of making a similar difference in the lives of the needy, balancing the analytical rigor of a McKinsey consultant with the passionate humanism of the AIDS activist.

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On another note, one of the main reasons I chose Fuqua was CASE - the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship. One of our professors, Cathy Clark, was just at a White House conference on the 'impact economy' ('impact' presumably referring to the social and environmental) and wrote an exciting post about it. (related Social Edge discussion) While a healthy skepticism about the latest flavor of do-gooder concepts is critical, I am buoyed by the increasingly mainstream trend of people focused on social development.