Bias: Offensively Chinese-Australian: A Collection of Essays on China and Australia, reviewed by Chad Habel

 170 JASAL 8 2008

Ouyang Yu. Bias: Offensively Chinese-Australian: A Collection of Essays

on China and Australia. Kingsbury, Victoria: Otherland Publishing,

2007, 315 pp.

AU$54.95

ISBN: 0975609203

Otherland Publishing

Th e title of Ouyang Yu’s non-fi ction collection encapsulates his work

perfectly. A clear reference to Joseph Furphy’s iconic slogan, it suggests that

Ouyang has experienced more Australian bias than democratic temper. Th e

title also suggests that Ouyang’s work is unabashedly biased, in the sense of

being derived from and driven by personal experience. Th is gives his writing

a passion and vocal quality which can be unnerving to a reader used to more

detached academic writing, and he is not afraid to off end in order to get

his point across. Finally, the articulation of a hyphenated identity goes to

the core of Ouyang’s work: a living fi gure of hybridity, he destabilises the

purist essentialism and muted xenophobia which is a lamentable reality of

mainstream Australian culture.

Since his arrival in Australia in 1991 Ouyang Yu has been an exceptionally

active and prolifi c writer, having published over forty books in this time. What

is more remarkable is that he has worked in a variety of fi elds and genres: as

a literary critic he completed his PhD in Australian literature and has written

reviews on both Australian and Chinese publications; as a translator he has

translated several Australian novels into Chinese; as a poet he has published

many anthologies and had poems published in several major publications;

as an essayist he is a vocal cultural commentator; and he has also completed

a novel, Th e Eastern Slope Chronicle (2002) with other books forthcoming.

However, this success has not come easily.

Although Bias: Off ensively Chinese-Australian is not explicitly autobiographical,

the story that emerges is one of a man who has found it diffi cult to make a new

life, especially as an intellectual, in Australia. Th e fi rst essay in the collection is

characteristically strident, railing against the diffi culty of securing an academic

position and identifying an absence of Asian writers in Australian poetry

anthologies. To accusations that he is too confrontational, too aggressive and

‘in your face’ Ouyang replies, ‘But the fact that no Asians are included is just

as ‘in your face’ as anything else, and as ‘aggressive’. Look at the recent issueREVIEWS 171

of Granta featuring so-called Australian writings. It’s nothing but a show bag

of colonialism clothed in gaudy rags of big names that have ceased to interest

anyone except their own ilk’ (23). Th is trenchant kind of critique is certainly

representative of these pieces, but it is also balanced by more introspective,

measured discussions.

Ouyang’s writing is conditioned by a deeply-felt sense of diff erence which

is hardly the stuff of multiculturalist rhetoric. In his ‘Self-Introduction’ he

writes, ‘For me [. . .] the diff erence feels like an invisible scar left deeply in my

heart and my mind, simultaneously serving as the division as well as the joint’

(15). To a reader unfamiliar with his work this may sound like a self-indulgent

lamentation, but it is in fact his lived experience. Furthermore, the paradox

of diff erences serving as both division and joint takes this statement beyond

self-pity or complaint and evokes the complex dynamics of intersubjectivity.

Bias: Off ensively Chinese-Australian is divided into eight thematically divided

sections which broadly move from literary criticism to a concern with linguistic

and cultural identities. Th e sheer breadth of concerns is impossible to do

justice to in a short review. Th ere is no clear chronological pattern: the essays

range through the 1990s and up to 2004, where translations and poetry seem

to have taken up more of the author’s time. Th is lack of chronology does make

it diffi cult to discern progression or development in Ouyang’s experiences and

thinking, but perhaps it is misguided for a reader to seek an autobiographical

narrative in the text. In any case, the thematic ordering is more eff ective at

giving an overview of Ouyang’s life and works, and a diachronic narrative is

another project entirely.

Another problem with the book is also simply a result of its nature; because it

is a compilation of diff erent pieces over time, there is a recurrence of ideas and

expressions which sometimes amounts to repetition. Th is reminds the reader

that the book has not been written as a unifi ed entity, and the author has used

various outlets over the years to give expression to persistent concerns within

his work. Th is is a minor problem in that it tends to alienate the reader, but

it does serve the purpose of highlighting particular threads which are central

to Ouyang’s thinking.

Th e only really annoying occurrence of this type of repetition is in some

reviews, which tend to follow a ‘plot summary, evaluation’ formula. Th is is

particularly noticeable towards the end of certain reviews when a phrase such

as ‘Th ere are, however, some problems with the book’ precedes a list of errors

or weaknesses. Th is is, however, entirely forgivable in a form like reviewing

which has such generic constraints.172 JASAL 8 2008

Having said this, Ouyang’s literary criticism is insightful. An accomplished

poet himself, his readings of other poets are particularly perceptive. He

is certainly acute in his criticisms, and particularly aware of the kind of

‘Orientalist will to power’ that he fi nds in the poetry of Leith Morton and

Dane Th waites (33). However, he is also generous with praise when he fi nds a

suitable subject, such as Gary Catalano (36) or the Chinese poet Chao Sheng

(39). Indeed, much of Ouyang’s reading is indebted to the critical discourse

approach of Edward Said; he discerns a continuous Othering of Chinese

characters in Australian literature, but also a type of ‘positive Orientalism’

in Alex Miller’s Th e Ancestor Game (238). In his Modern Times review of this

novel, there is a deep ambivalence in the claim that it ‘is a breakthrough in

that stereotyping and orientalizing tradition’ (64), given that it also off ers both

‘spiritual consolation’ and ‘a profound insight into the theme of displacement’

(65). It is when Ouyang explores these problematic aspects of linguistic and

cultural identity that his writing really sings.

While any intelligent reader can write adequate reviews, such multifaceted

refl ections on identity could only come from a cultural commentator as

passionate, engaged and committed as Ouyang Yu. On the one hand he feels

displaced from China: he has been long enough from home that it no longer

feels quite like home. He fi nds that upon more recent returns he longs for

the quiet, space and clean air he has become accustomed to in Melbourne.

He also has had diffi culty getting published in China: for political or moral

reasons (such as his concern with personal or sexual experience, or his

colourful language) no publishers would incur the ire of the establishment by

publishing his work.

However, Australia is no idyllic refuge: Ouyang has found it, variously, like

‘living after death’ (113), ‘living in hell’, or ‘living on the reverse side of paradise’

(162). He writes that it is particularly diffi cult living as a Chinese-Australian

intellectual: he has to deal with both the pervasive anti-intellectualism of

mainstream Australian culture as well as racism and more subtle forms of

xenophobia. Th is is perhaps the most discomforting aspect of Ouyang’s

writing for a white Australian to read. Even for a reader who is already critical

of the comforting myth of tolerant multiculturalism it is confronting to read

of a very diff erent reality by the author of poems like ‘Fuck you, Australia’.

Needless to say, this confrontation is crucial to unsettling self-comforting

claims of equity and a ‘fair go’.

Nonetheless, not all of Ouyang’s meditations on his displacement are quite

so negative. Just as a soul-destroying mimicry can develop into life-affi rming

hybridity, Ouyang gestures towards possibilities for a more than usuallyREVIEWS 173

fulfi lling life inhabiting the interstices between dominant cultures. Th is is

clearly what he fi nds so uplifting in Miller’s novel. Combining this positive

vision with his characteristic iconoclasm he writes, ‘More than a hundred

years ago, Henry Lawson said: Chinese have to be killed or cured. Now I say:

Th e fear of hyphenation and hybridity, two great keywords of our times, has

to be killed or cured’ (139). For Ouyang the process of translating language

feeds into the translation of cultures, and self-translation in particular enacts

a hybridity which cannot but be evocative of Homi K. Bhabha’s ‘Th ird Space’.

Th ese forward-looking essays are as inspiring as the trenchant pieces are

confronting.

Th e standout essay in the collection is ‘My Father Tongue’ (119). Here

Ouyang begins by exploring the peculiar linguistic associations of ‘mother’

and ‘father’ in Chinese literature: ‘Th e absence of Father is as interesting as

the presence of Mother, particularly when I come to reminisce about my

own father’s absence’ (120). Th is leads to a deeply moving account of the

author’s relationship with his father and their communication across vast

geographical and cultural distances. An emotive memory work depicting

poignant moments in Ouyang’s upbringing, this essay is also a tribute to his

father’s gift for learning languages and his love for ancient Chinese poetry. It

concludes with a wistful acceptance of death within life and absence within

presence.

Bias: Off ensively Chinese-Australian is an important book for anyone interested

in either Chinese or Australian literature and culture, but is especially

important for those interested in both. It is an unsettling testament to some

of the faults and failures of both countries but also refl ects a yearning for a

more positive future. It is at once dismaying and hopeful, and evokes the

potential for real change for a nation which has just elected its fi rst Chinese-

speaking leader. Hopefully, in an Australia which hears the Prime Minister

wish a Happy New Chinese Year on Australia Day, Ouyang’s writing to date

will become a testament to things past.

Chad Habel, Flinders University