Kuan Pung and his wife Kien arrived in Australia having survived the Killing Fields of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime. His daughter Alice Pung is a Melbourne lawyer and author of books such as Unpolished Gem, Growing Up Asian in Australia, Her Father’s Daughter and her latest release, Laurinda. She talked with Fiona Parker about her own experience of growing up in Melbourne.
Alice’s mother Kien has a very different idea of beauty at odds with some Australian values. She sees an antique piece of furniture for example as old and ugly, whereas the modern, ‘tacky’ furniture that was available to the family was beautiful, being new and fresh. As children the Pungs made paper chains out of supermarket catalogues, glossy and colourful, beautiful.
“Australia likes to believe that class doesn’t exist. It does” Alice references popular shows like Housos and Kath and Kym, where the poor are made fun of. Stanley, the setting for her latest book Laurinda is based on Braybrook, a very poor suburb in Melbourne’s west. Alice told a story about taking a group of students to an open day at an exclusive, private school. Noticing that ‘her’ kids were not being taken seriously she realised that they had all dressed up for the event by wearing lots of ‘bling’, trying to fit in. Other children, however were far more casually, more expensively dressed. The difference was blinding, and heartbreaking.
Finally Alice told the story of the title of her 2007 book, Unpolished Gem. She related a saying, Chinese, or Cambodian that spoke of gender difference. ‘Girls are like cotton wool, once dirty, can never be cleaned, but boys, boys are like gems, they get better the more they are polished.’ The meaning is clear. A girl’s reputation, once tarnished, can never be repaired, however boys are not held to the same standard.
Alice comes across as a quiet, shy young woman but one with a strength that is inspirational. Someone with determination and heart to help others, a true gem.