Teenage Dreamers by Phillip Tang

1. What are the first two sentences of the story and how do they create a tension in the story? When the author says that father has a sixth sense for death this creates tension because we feel that the story is going to be revolving around death. This sentence does that by giving the reader a feeling of suffering which also contributes to tension given off.

2. What has happened to the author’s father as a result of his wife’s death? The author's father has become obsessed with Leslie Cheung also father has become very emotional and feeling a bit of loneliness.

3. How does the description of the father removing his hands from his face as ‘unmasked’ related to the seriousness of his following statement? Since father has been so emotional when the authors mother left him when he unmasked his face to the author, this gives us a sense that he had gotten rid of all the extra emotion and spoken in all seriousness. Also the fact that his following statement was about the person he was most obsessed about gives us evidence that he is serious about what he cares about.

4. Consider how the father lives his life and conducts himself and the other people in the theatre for the film the author and his father are watching. How does this relate to the title of the story? Since Father is so lonely becuase his wife left him and in the cinema he was crying and acting like a mess. This behavior is a symbol for the stereotypical image of a teenage girl crying over a pop star or over a movie this relates to the image of teenage dreamers

Conversations with my Parents by Oanh Thi Tran

1. What is ironic about the way the author and the father become close? What has to happen to the father? What was ironic about the way the author became close was the author didn't talk to father for a long time becuase what father thought about the Author's behavior. So when Father became sick the Author would spend long hours at the hospital be his side to prove what a dutiful person she was.

2. How would you characterise the conversation that the author has with her parents? I would characterize the conversation as lacking in emotion. I feel the author doesn't really have a strong connection with her family.

3. What is it that worries the author most about these conversations? What worries the author is because she is so far away from her family she feels that she should still keep a strong connection with them. But becuase the conversations are so short and lacking of emotion she feels worried about they relationship between herself and her family.

4. There is a gap between the author’s need to express feelings common in western countries and her family’s lack of desire to express their feelings verbally. How does the family still express their feelings for their child, just not verbally? It is obvious the family don't have the ability to communicate their feeling about their child being away from home but we still do get evidence of the feeling expressed by the family. When Mother talks about cooking the dishes crab and banh xeo the mother remembers that these two dishes were her favorites and she trying to communicate through previous happiness of the Authors life with the family.

Lessons from my School Years by Ray Wing-Lun

1. There is a stark contrast created in the opening of this story between what the narrator had been doing before entering school and what will be expected at school? What is this contrast and what does it immediately create in the story? At the opening of this story the contrast of life before going to school being very relaxed and for the narrator quite boring compared to the deeply disciplined life at school. This immediately creates excitement and it makes the reader anxious about what is going to happen. 

2. The author continues this theme of contrast at the start of the story. How does he do this in his description of his experience of Sydney’s North Shore? The author further contrasts life between life in the North shore of Sydney and life we infer back in China. He does this by contrasting the leafy streets and solid brick houses of China to the stretch of shops along the highway.

3. What was the father’s background in business before he opened the fruit shop? What has helped him become successful? The author's father came to Australia when he was seventeen without knowing any English and no business experience. The key to his success was his ability to draw customers in by starting a conversation being always keen to ask people what they wanted.

4. The narrator’s description of his father is complex. What makes the father a complex character? What makes his father a complex character is his attention to detail. The narrator describes how his father would spent long nights recording all the sales down to the last penny and how he would spent long hours practicing his calligraphy in both English and in Chinese.

5. (91) How does the author describe his role in doing ‘things that counted’? The author describes that now that he is going to school he will be able to do something that mattered so he could contribute to the family rather than just sitting around and listening and watching.

6. What experience does the author have at school while keeping to himself? What does he learn from this experience? While he was sitting alone counting the cars going across the highway he got confronted by the biggest kid in his class and he punches him and the stomach and he gets told on. From this experience he then learns to socialize with the other kids and how he made new friends from this fight.

7. How would you characterise the narrator’s tone in regards to the events that are occurring around him? Throughout the narration I notice that they sentences are very short and sharp we can infer the this is trying to have the effect of a young child speaking very fast about what is happening. This could refer to young kids how alert they are at that young age seeing new things and experiencing new things.

8. How does the narrator characterise the ways that one could ‘get the strap’ and ways that one could avoid it? He says that they are many ways you could get the strap not many to avoid it though.

9. What event evokes a racist speech to the class by the teacher? When the narrator sends a letter in to his teacher asking to be excused from the swimming carnival becuase he cant swim the teacher reads the letter out to the whole class and insults him by saying how Chinese people don't contribute to anything and he should leave the school.

10. What effect did the author’s experience with ‘Strap Happy Jack’ have on him? This experience made him even quieter than he was before and becuase he was only one of 4 or 5 Chinese people in the whole school and even the whole chatswood area he was completely alone.

11. What was the one advantage school provided the author? The introduction of Shintaro the Samurai on Australian TV provided him with some value of his Asian background as it was very popular throughout his peers.

12. What did the author do at his school? What was his motivation for doing it? What did he feel was lacking at school? The author became part of the social side of school and his motivation for this is the school was so easy on the students who made the school look good which encouraged lack of motivation. He felt that he was lacking a sense of direction on what he wanted to do with his life and he was very confused in the final year of school coming to the point when you are thinking about what are you going to do for a job.

13. What did the parents want their son to do at school? What did the author fear would happen by obeying his parents? They always wanted a doctor for the family but he was afraid that he hadn't done to work to get the marks to become a doctor and he still wasn't sure what he wanted rather than listening to somebodies else's opinion. 

14. At school, what did the author learn about his own type of thinking and how to use it? Throughout his schooling life he learnt how he has different ideas and he just had to wait for opportunities to use the kind of thinking he had.

The Early Settlers by Ken Chau

techniques: pun, alliteration, vulgar slang, ambiguous pronouns

1. How does this title refer to two groups of ‘settlers’? Who are they? The title can refer to the earliest of settlement of Australia being the Europeans and the aboriginals

2. How is the first line of the poem successful at being ‘forceful’ regarding the Great-Grandfather’s presence in Australia? The poem's first line is so forceful in Great- grandfathers presence in Australia becuase it is so short and straight to the point.

3. What action are the ‘early settlers’ doing that gives them equally a strong presence? The action of entrenching which could mean preparing to defend their position of land give then equally as strong presence of the new settlers arriving. 'Arrive' being in conflict with 'entrench'

4. How is the intention of the Great-Grandfather juxtaposed to the beliefs of the ‘early settlers’? The intention of Great grandfather is to grow corn, cabbage and tobacco. Since the early settlers already entrenched we can infer there is no space for great grandfather to plant.

5. What action does the Great-Grandfather do that ties him both to the ‘early settlers’ and to his own culture? When great grandfather calls the early settlers a foreign devil this ties him and his culture also becuase he is also a foreigner.
6. How does this short poem highlight the irony of the hatred that immigrants experience when they come to a 'settled' land like Australia? This poem highlights the irony even today when immigrants come to Australia are getting judged by the people who one way or another are mostly immigrants anyway.

The Relative Advantages of Learning my Language by Amy Choi

The author makes us consider what it really means about understanding someone's language? What basic human skill/ability is the author highlighting that cuts across all cultures? The author highlights how important it is if you are in a family that speaks a different language to learn and be able to carry on the culture of our family.

 Describe a time when you were at fault for not communicating with someone because of your own selfishness or lack of compassion.
When a couple of years ago I was watching TV on a Sunday night and my mum came to ask me to help her with emails on her computer and I refused and becuase of this she wasn't able to contact a builder for renovations for our house.

1. The author opens the story with an anecdote. What is the anecdote and what effect does it have on the reader? The anecdote at the start of the story gives us the effect of sympathy for the grandfather who is trying to communicate to the Author but she is not letting him.

2. What is the author’s view of the Chinese language in the 2^nd paragraph? The author feels that there is no point bothering to learn Chinese becuase they live in Australia.

3. What is symbolic about the house that the Grandfather mistakes for his own? What does it say about the assimilation of his family into Australian culture? What does it say about his understanding of Australian culture? What is ironic about the inhabitants of this house? What is symbolic about the house is the description of the timber mailbox and the ford falcon out front makes it sound like it was a normal Australian home. This says the the family has become a normal Australian family despite Asian background. The grandfathers understanding of Australian culture in my opinion is very limited becuase he believes that Australians are Australians becuase of what their house looks like and what kind of things they own rather than the culture of the family. What is ironic about the people who live in the house is that they are not even Australian they are Pakistani.

4. What does the death of her grandfather inspire the author to do? The death or her grandfather inspires her to master the spoken language of Chinese.

5. Why is she motivated to know Chinese? What is it she wants to ensure she is able to, regretting that she couldn’t do it with her grandfather? She is motivated to learn Chinese becuase she now understands how she ignored her grandfather and how she feels bad about what she did. So time an elderly person or a Chinese only speaking person wants her to listen she is not only willing be able too.

Growing Up Asian in Australia: Intro + Pigs Questions

Introduction by Alice Pung

1. What were Asian-Australians referred to as when the author was growing up? Power points referring to power sockets being their faces.

2. How does she interpret this title? She interprets this title as positive because she thought it referred to the Asian people as being so smart and having electrifying brain power.

3. What did this title actually refer to? Did the author find this demeaning? Why/why not? The title actually referred to the way a power socket represented the facial features of an Asian person. The author didn't really find this offensive becuase she thought of the power socket as a sort of cute face similar to the ones she was reading in her books.

4. ‘All that untapped potential! All that electrifying brain power!’ What techniques are being employed by the author? How does they highlight he misunderstanding? The author has used personification to use the title that the kids at school have given to the Asian's and turned it into a complement on how smart Asian people are. This highlights misunderstanding becuase she has analyzed and personified a title given by kids further proving how smart she is rather than just realizing that it was an insult.

5. What did the teen author take away from teen fiction? What did she feel that she needed to do? Why?  The teen fiction that she was reading gave her the idea that she needed extensive plastic surgery. Instead she stopped reading those books becuase she felt she needed a more extensive view about what it is like to experience 'firsts' in life. What does this say is essential to fitting in to a culture? It gives us the sense that an understanding a mixture of people's different experiences is essential to trying to fit into a culture

6. Who are the authors that she turns to? Why? She turned to authors John Marsden and Robert Cormier who wrote with honesty and feeling about coming of age. She decided a view that was written from personal experiences rather than an observer would be better to understanding how to fit into a culture.

7. In the third paragraph how does the author use repetition. How does it highlight the focus of this book? The author uses repetition in the word 'first' this highlights the focus of the book is the moment people have doing something for the first time.

8. What metaphor does the author use to highlight the writers and the writing style in the third paragraph? "distant observers, plucking the most garnish fruit from the lowest hanging branches of an exotic cultural tree"

9. Why does the author use a quote in the 4^th paragraph? What does it say about her reaction to the stories in the book? "Change only the name and this story is also about you" This implies that all the stories from all the different people the author can relate to from her own experiences.

10. On page 2 the author talks about the themes that she loosely choose for the collection. What are they and why is it ironic that they show up in this book? The themes such as helping family life, striving for a career and growing up are some of the themes explored in the book. What is ironic about these themes that they are all traits that have been worthy of collective national pride so this shows us the Asian people beyond the stereotype.

11. At the bottom of pg 3 on to page 4 the author says that sociologists have described Asians as the ‘model minority’. What is meant by this? What difficulties arise out of this label for young Asian-Australians? The term 'model minority' mean a people that are dominant  and who are the model for all people to strive for. This label puts immense pressure on the young Asian-Australians who are judged weather they are successful or not.

12. What are the editor’s hopes for the collection of stories? The editors hope of this book is to answer the key questions about identity and for people through the collection of stories to understand a sense of belonging

Pigs from Home by Hop Dac

1. How does the author start this story which is in direct contrast to the title of the story? What effect does this have on the reader and their expectations of the story? The author starts this story by giving us a sense that he or she isn't writing about a story about living in Australia but is more giving us an experience which is represented by the use of animals. This effect gives the reader the idea that the story has a deeper meaning.

2. What core Vietnamese value is instilled in the author? A self sustaining family

3. What is humorous about the mother’s ‘flair for natural medicine’ in regards to her personality? We get the idea that mother's interest in herbs is funny becuase she doesn't exactly use many of them herself it is more for her friends so it is humorous she is like the herb supplier for all her friends.

4. How does the description of the killing of pigeons continue the style utilised in the introduction of the story? The description of killing pigeons was very harsh this continues the style utilized at the introduction of the story when the author concludes that pigs aren't actually very pleasant animals when talking about its shit.

5. What is the author’s opinion of pigs? Give two quotes to support your conclusion. The author really doesn't like pigs. "No pig has ever been a friend of mine" "repugnant beast, the pig"

6. In the paragraph on pgs 53-54, give two examples of alliteration employed by the author. 'Feeding frenzy' 'blowing raspberries on the bellies of babies'

7. On pg 54 what simile is used to describe pigs? How does this simile work for the situation it is used? "A pig is the like the ocean, don't turn your back on it" This simile works for the situation becuase the simile exactly describes how a pig moods fluctuate and how quickly the duck was attack like a wave in the ocean. 

8. What simile does the author use to describe her mother sunning herself? How does this relate to the core focus of the story? The author describes her mother as a chicken on a spit roast getting cooked. This relates to the core theme being animals and food.

9. What does the author describe as ‘the divide between the old world and the new’? What do you think is meant by this statement? What is meant by this statement how different the author is to mother how she runs outside kills an animal and makes it into a dish just like that was normal.

10. What is the author’s reaction to the slaughter of the pig at night? What statement does the author make about the neighbours which displays the way he feels about the whole experience? What is important about including this statement? The authors reaction to the slaughter was quite nerve racking, the author was quite shocked and frozen by the whole experience. When the author talks about the girls next door this is important as we understand the Author cares about how they perceive him. 

11. Why don’t the parents have pigs anymore? How does this relate to the description of the burial of the last pig they owned? The parents don't have pigs anymore becuase of their friends who are pig farmers and they throw pork at them whenever they go over to visit.

12. How would you characterise the description of the mother’s treatment of the pig’s blood? Is it appetising? I would characterize the treatment of the pigs blood as very old fashion, we can infer that the recipe of pigs blood has some health benefit so it has been passed down through the family. It is sliced and put on other dishes.

13. What is ironic about the way the author has a popular Vietnamese dish? What is it about the way the author describes the experience of having pigs that makes it ironic? What is ironic how the author was acting so frozen around the slaughtering of the pig but eats the blood on the dishes normally. What is ironic is the author throughout the story tells us that he hates pigs but without a worry he eats it an a popular dish.

14. How does this story relate to the title Pigs from Home? The story relates how in Australia the family are still carrying on with their traditions with pork and blood in the dishes.

15. Why do you think this story is in the Battlers section of the book? I think the section battler can relate to the struggle the pig had for survival when it was being slaughtered by the men.

Writing Letters

Shmuel to his family back in Poland (if they were still alive) about his life in the camp and his best friend Bruno.

Dear family,
                I am still very sad about all that has happened to us back home and I can never forget how I was taken away and the trip coming here to camp. For days and nights I was awake thinking about what will happen and whether I will ever come home to see your faces once again. I am now struggling to survive and I am always hungry and i am always picked on and beat by the other people and soldiers for doing nothing wrong. It's really sad to see the other people fight in the camp as of right now we are making hut's to live in and everyone is constantly fighting and this reminds me of home and how I always would start fights and how now I look back and see how I wish I could change everything and live everyone moment to the fullest knowing know how quickly everything can change.

Just one day as I was sitting behind the concrete rubble by myself I cam across a new Friend called Bruno. Bruno is very different to me and he lives on the other side of the fence, the first day I met him he came across quite rude but I knew that he was the only friend I will have so I had to make sure i was very nice to him. Every afternoon now Bruno comes to visit me and we sit and talk for hours about home and how our lives changed. This sometimes make me very sad but I can see that he is trying his best to listen because he understands how It felt in some regards to be taken away from home to a different place without any choice.

I hope one day I will be able to leave this place and become much better Friends with Bruno as he has asked me for dinner and for a play. But I don't think yet he understands why I am on the other side of the fence and I feel that it should be kept that way as our unlikely friendship is only able to work if Bruno is kept innocent about the whole situation. I hope despite everything that has happened Home is still the same and one day I will return to you when everything is back to normal.

Loving regards Shmuel


Bruno to his Grandmother right before going on his final adventure (imagine she was still alive)

Dear Grandmother,
                            I am very sad that you weren't able to visit us at our new house although I dont really think you would've enjoyed your stay I still miss you very much. Our new house Is completely different to our old house I thought that since our last house was so great that our new house would be even better but when we arrives here is 'out with' I came to see that the house was much worse so I began to think why would we move into a much worse house.

Time moved along and I realised that my opinion shouldn't be voiced as much as I normally do, I discovered this when during dinner the horrible Lt Kotler who was always around the house in Father's absence had Pavel a waiter here pour him another glass of wine when he accidentally dropped it on Kotler's lap and after that I only remember crying after Kotler beat Pavel severely for just an accident. From them I realised that living here was something much more than changing houses I felt like I was here for a job also and my job was only to keep quiet and do as I was told.

Despite all the negativity I found only one thing that I would mainly spend my time on which was making a new friend. When we first arrived at the house I noticed an odd type of camp with huge fences that went on for miles and different types of buildings which let out a huge amount of smoke daily which I thought was very strange and also very horrible I decided to start exploration since there was nothing else to do around the house. On my first day I say something very amazing a boy, out my window I could see people but I was told by my father that the people in pyjamas actually weren't people at all so when I say a boy in pyjamas I felt like saying to dad that I found a boy in pyjamas but I then I thought about not causing trouble so I decided to keep it to myself.

From that point on I spent every afternoon of every day talking to this new friend, I discovered his name was Shmuel and he was from a family in Poland which wad further evidence that he was a person. During our conversations we talked about home and friends and life before we both were taken away to a different place. I discovered that Shmuel was also taken away from his home which made my feel better that I wasn't the only person who had to go through that. Months went on but after all I learned still one question hadn't been answered why couldn't he leave the camp and why he was wearing pyjamas. Naturally I left it alone becuase I didn't want to upset my new friend but now I think to myself I should ask father for Gretal and myself to go back to Berlin for a day to visit you since you couldn't get here last visit and hopefully I will be able to see you soon.

From your loving Bruno