'How to Life' with Benjamin Law
Shania O’Brien
The USU’s ‘How to Life’ programme invites influential people to talk about their experiences and offer advice to students. Most recently, Australian author and journalist, Benjamin Law spoke at Hermann’s Bar on March 5 as part of the USU’s annual Pride Fest.
In what Law described as an hour-long-TED-Talk-come-open-mic event, he relayed aspects of his life, experiences, inspirations, and hopes with the help of a slideshow.
Law began by talking about history. 2020 is the 201st anniversary of the first Chinese migrant’s arrival in Australia, and Law’s documentary, Waltzing the Dragon (2019) follows the story of his forebears and the overlap between the China-Australia relationship. Law was lonesome growing up in the ghost town of Caloundra, with his only exposure being to legacy white media that didn’t showcase the realities of his country’s multiculturalism. Law knew he was different as a child, his interests lying in braiding hair and reading books. His friends could not tell that he was gay, believing he was “just Asian.” While Queensland was the last mainland state to decriminalise same-sex marriage, Law spoke about how changing the law does not automatically cause social latitudes to align.
He was an outsider. However, luckily for Law, being an outsider is a great asset to one’s writing ability. One of the most valuable aspects of storytelling is the ability to have an original perspective. As a gay person of color from a broken home, Law’s writing was enriched with layers upon layers of nuance. Law joked about the various dust jackets for different editions of his first book, The Family Law. Out-of-context illustrations made the book seem like a memoir of child abuse, a terrorism memoir, the story of a French orphan, and the tale of a little boy with a very specific medical condition: having too much water stuck inside his giant skull.
But Law needed to get out of his head. He wanted to explore a different side of journalism, choosing to focus on queer stories overseas, a feat that turned into his second novel, Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East. This particular venture, he believed, was a result of the big question all migrants ask themselves: what if I never moved? His parents were from Malaysia and Mainland China; and between Malaysian homosexuality laws being harsh and the Chinese queer community being almost invisible and not having a proper word for ‘queer,’ Law didn’t need to look far to seek out who he would’ve been; it was reflected to him in members of his extended family.
SBS’s adaptation of The Family Law was the first time a TV narrative with a majority Asian Australian cast about an Asian Australian family. It is not, Law specified, a story about ethnicity. It is a black comedy about a divorce that happens to be Asian Australian. Law wanted to create a story with facets that appealed to everyone, regardless of race, gender, and sexual orientation. This was successful because the themes explored in the show speak to the fundamental human experience. The fact this was the first show of its kind indicates Australian media still needs to sail many miles before it leaves the monocultural whitewash harbour it resides in. Law talked about how difficult it was to watch an Asian couple represented poorly on Neighbours, their tenure lasting one episode where the primary joke saw them accused of barbequing a pet dog. The concept of meritocracy does not exist in this context because there is an implicit bias working against some people. Law believes that Australia does white stories very well and that it is time to move on. Law is endeavouring to do just that in his current work on a one-hour revisionist murder-mystery special revolving around Chinese, Caucasian, and Aboriginal Australians during the gold rush.
At the end of the programme I was lucky enough to speak to Law. I asked if he had any advice for the members of the queer community at the University of Sydney who are still questioning, are afraid, or don’t know what to do. His response was to inoculate isolation because you are not alone. Whether you’re struggling with your parents, yourself or just with life, Law wants you to know that there are support groups that have been created to help you work through these problems. There is ACON, PFLAG, and multiple other multicultural outreach groups.
“Your tribe is out there,” he said. “It is one step away.”
ACON: (02) 9206 2000
PFLAG: (02) 9294 1002