Sadness - From Lindt to The Daily Telegraph

This morning I woke up with the heaviest of heart. There was ping on my phone and when I picked it up the message read “What happened? Why 3 ppl dead?”

I immediately logged on to ABC News 24 and found out two hostages were killed over night in the Lindt café siege. The gunman was also killed but that did not compensate the loss of innocent lives because of someone’s extreme agenda.

I have been following the case since it started yesterday at 9.45am. I immediately called a friend who works opposite to the café to make sure she is alright. The whole city was thrown into panic. We all hope there would be a peaceful resolution.

With this ended in bloodshed, nobody in this beautiful city is unaffected. The #MartinPlace and #SydneySiege had been trending on social media in the last 24 hours. We all held our breath and watched helplessly. As more information comes dripping out from the official channels, more questions were asked. There are scrutinies on the operation and there are questions whether the judicial system failed the society because of the ocean deep criminal records the gunman had. For me apart from extreme sadness when my eye swelled up during breakfast, I couldn’t help but ask why did things come down to this? What went wrong?

During the course of events, I was extremely angry when The Daily Telegraph published an obviously cash in edition of the paper sensationalising the whole incident while it was still happening. I am never a fan of the practice of News Corps, or some called it the News Corpse, but taking advantage of the situation to sensationalise a story that you have no information of just to push your agenda and sales is beyond low. This morning when ABC interviewed the editor, he was non-repentant saying that they made good judgement of what they saw in the pictures and thus the headline and the story. They said they can justify their move and did not care what the public thinks. He even went further about capitalising the incident as they see there will be good stories to write about in the coming weeks.  For me I just couldn’t believe they could still call themselves journalists when there is no sense of social responsibility with them. The lack of compassion for human lives, especially lives lost, and simply saying these are good stories to cover for sales is just beyond my comprehension as a trained communication professional. When I was at university, I took a unit of journalism and that was utterly not what I was taught. Also because of their irresponsible stories they would continue to spread unnecessary fear and hatred across the society thus undermining the works of other people who wanted to build a harmonious society. Maybe that is their agenda and maybe that is what they wanted. But then if that is the case what is the difference between them and ISIS?

There is no doubt the Sydney society is shaken to the core by this incident. We are no longer a blank canvas anymore. But what I see is the opportunity to build something good out of this. Yes the canvas is soiled but it is how we restore and continue with the painting that counts. The brushes and the colours may never cover the stains but then we can still paint something beautiful out of it if we make an attempt to do so. Every one of us is an artist of our society and it requires all of us to apply our brushes to make this society beautiful again. One of the good initiatives that came out in the last 24 hours was the “I’ll ride with you” movement that came out from a simple story. The #i’llridewithyou has become one of the biggest trends across social media and that is the kind of beauty that I want to see our society exhibits. Some media outlets or personalities see Islam as cancer cells in the Christian societies and continue to paint them black.  But for me who is more lethal and poisonous? The people with a different religion who want to be part of the society or the people who continue to condemn and stereotype other people whom they are not well informed of and have little knowledge about? The #I’llridewithyou movement is significant because it is a strong message to the society that people do care about each other disregarding their differences. It is the will power of we want to be together and support each other disregarding our differences that will continue to improve our society.

There is nothing we can do about innocent lives being lost but we can contribute to make our society better, not in a personal agenda kind of way but thinking of the society as a whole and thinking of where we want mankind to go kind of way. There is no doubt there are Islamic extremists around the world but they do not represent Islam as a religion and Muslims as its followers. It is the same for KKK does not represent Christianity and Christians. If we care about how Christians being treated in Islamic states we should also care about how Muslims are being treated in Christian countries. I hope something good would come out from this tragic event and Sydney and Australia will become stronger as one and not weaker as many.

My condolences on the innocent lives lost in this tragic event.

Artists are from the Left?

Was having a catch up with some friends in the arts circle the other day. Usually we just talk about arts and nothing else. However with all the recent developments in Australian politics we inevitably touched on the subject and surprisingly we had pretty distinctive views about a number of issues. We pulled up experience and facts and debated. And then we suddenly noticed that this is the first time we had such distinct views about certain things and could not reach a common ground.

However, there was one thing that we all agreed on – the relentless attack on the arts sector by the government. From a broken promise of enormous $254 million cuts to ABC and SBS to the not too many people mentioned $30 million cuts to the Australia Council. One of my friends pointed out that the Coalition government hated ABC because “it was run by a bunch of lefties” that relentlessly criticises the government. But then I said there was a report sometime last year or early this year indicating that ABC’s criticism to the government is not biased as both the Labor and Coalition governments received similar shares of scrutinies by ABC’s programming. I further pointed out that it could be an impression the Coalition government was trying to build by repeatedly criticising ABC publicly as I did not recall the Labor government doing so during their terms. I said what the agenda behind this is something behind their party doors but certainly my impression was that the Coalition government was trying to create a false impression about ABC “left-wingness”.

Then our discussion went on to about the left wing sentiments of artists. For me I personally feel that artists are not necessarily left wing. I would never consider myself as left wing because I simply am not. However artists tend to be more independent thinking and tend to question status quo more. That is something that comes with the artistic quality – it is something important to continue to shape and evolve our culture and society. I can’t say for other people, but since I was little I questioned about things that I do not think make sense to me and sometimes I express this through my drawing, writing or other artistic channels. It is that kind of questioning and continued scrutiny of the world around them that artists are so important for a society to grow. Without that art is nothing but some token brushes on a canvas or some standard structure on a music score that offers not a lot of values to the society and culture they reside in.

So for me an attack on arts is not an attack on the lefties but an attack on the society. For me I am angry and upset about all these cuts because I see it as a way this government trying to suppress free speech and expression while at the same time trying to change the racial law about bigotry under the same pretence of free speech and expression – it is irresponsibly hypocritical. For me it looks like an act of curbing the society’s ability to think independently so they could create a “harmonious” society that will only say yes to the government without questioning whether it is for the better of the society or for the better of the politicians and their cohort of friends. It is a class war waged without much class.

I cannot say for all other art forms but as a theatre graduate and practitioner, looking at the theatrical literatures in Australia, you can distinctively identify the periods, history, school of thoughts and not to mention the creativity of these writers. They could be either writing in response to the society and world they were living in or they could be writing simply via the manifestation of their imagination and experience. But most of them provide point of views. Some of them challenged the tokenism in their societies. Extraordinary pieces like Radiance, The Doll Trilogy, Don’s Party, Keating, Seven Stages of Grieving and When the Rain Stops Falling will not exist if the writers were not encouraged to be independent thinking and to question about the norm. And for this I am not saying questioning for the sake of questioning but questioning with an inquisitive mind that try to make sense when things do not make sense.

If the Coalition government’s current cuts on ABC, SBS and Australia Council are simply because they considered them not being part of their team, they are just diminishing themselves into authoritative institutes that they think they have the rights to condemn relentlessly on the international platform. They have to understand that criticisms on them do not automatically mean these people are lefties. I  question the meagre percentage raise for the defence force because the politicians are getting higher raise than the rest of the government while claiming strong focus on defence to justify spending 400 million on planes in hangers and at the same time crying no money for education, Medicare and the public broadcasters. I question them because they don’t add up and they don’t make sense.

For me an attack on arts and artists is not an attack on the lefties but an attack on a society everyone except this Coalition government is attempting to build – progressive, independent, inclusive and articulated.

The White Elephantisation of the Library Business?

A recent job requires me to decommission a special library in an organisation. The reason behind this was the organisation received a substantial cut from it funding organisation so it is up to the organisation to find ways to cut expenses. With the Library being under-utilised, it became the target of cut to avoiding cutting grants they need to give out.

The email for the close down of the library went out the other day asking for all staff to return their loaned items for decommission and write off. When staff members started showing up, they were sad about the library getting closed down and said they will miss it. My response was “Well that’s what happens when you don’t use it and it cannot justify continued funding”. In most cases, there were guilty looks on them. But this is a cold hard fact in an age where everyone thinks Google is an unlimited source of information and other things were just supplementary. When people said that to me, I usually responded, “How do you know the information is correct?” And most often I would receive blank looks from their eyes. It is another cold hard fact – are we actually informed or we are just thinking we are being informed?

I am not here to defend the value of libraries or the library profession as I believe if you make yourself valuable, you have your value out there. However, it seems to be more often now that special libraries or libraries themselves have become white elephants in organisations and when the axes land, they land on them.

The thing is people seemed to like the fact that there is a library in the organisation. Somehow they feel the library emanates knowledge and wisdom. But then at the same time they don’t feel like going into them and spending time inside them. They became “use by needs” institutes that could help people crossing tight deadlines for projects they have no idea how to complete.  Otherwise libraries just sit there and look nice. Why has it become like this? Most people were trained to use libraries since schooling started but then its importance in people’s life diminishes over time as they grew up.

I personally think that while Google played a part in decentralising information, the library profession also has a share of responsibility for its own demise in certain cases. I have seen libraries and library professionals who claimed to be proud of their profession but did nothing to improve library as an entity or establishment. Old materials were not reviewed and weeded to make its collection up to date and relevant to their organisation needs; no promotion of services; no proactive help or presence for their services; no service charter informing users what are on offer; no continuous training and education for users to utilise their resources etc. In my opinion, unless the organisation showed no interest in keeping the library, doing all these would help to increase the value of libraries in organisations. The library profession is more than just coming in do some ordering, cataloguing and circulating, and then going home. This for me is an “I couldn’t care less attitude” and in the end will only lead to the demise of your own profession.

I might sound very critical about this whole situation but for me it is important that libraries and library professionals continue to grow and improve. Library conferences provide a lot of new technologies and ideas but are we just limiting ourselves to what were put on a plate and offered to us? In the past I repeatedly mentioned to my peers that librarians need to take a more disruptive approach to technology. They should look at how to exploit technology to their advantage instead of just using technologies as presented to them.  Thinking outside of the box is extremely important for library professionals if they want to stay relevant to business or otherwise they will just be limited to academic and school libraries and then slowly die out. Of course if that’s the stance I am fine with that but I do not know about other people.

On the other hand, I personally think there should be a change in dynamics on how other people and organisations see librarianship as a profession. I have moved on from purely library roles to information and knowledge management roles but from looking at the job market, I still feel that a lot of organisations still see information management as data analysis, data mapping and data migration, which I think is hugely underplaying what it is about. For me it is also about understanding why data is being collected and how to use them in a business context that is relevant to the business. To achieve this, an information and knowledge professional who understands users, technology and the business is required. I personally think this is a new road young librarians should start looking into and transforming their relevance as information and knowledge professionals. For organisations they need to open up their views about what information management is about and understand the value a properly trained information and knowledge management professional can offer.

It takes two to tango. If either side is unwilling to change and adapt, this will just become a tangled mess for both.

Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Are Aussie Movies Good At All?

Read an article shared by a friend on Facebook today and I frowned. It is another one of those why do Australians don’t watch Australian movies articles. I frowned not because I am an Australian actor and nobody is watching Australian movies. I frowned because of the whole narrow view about Australian movies and the incomplete picture that it presented. At the end it kind of redeemed itself by saying something more objective but then it was a quote from someone else not the writer’s personal view point.

It is a known secret that Australian films are not doing well in local box office. This could be contributed by multiple factors. Is it about the points that the article raised? Being too dark? Ocker stereotypes? Critics fault etc etc. I engaged in a few discussion about this on the post and it is quite obvious for me personally that Australian movies are not engaging for the audience. For me the first step to engagement is about establishing relationship with the audience. And one of the main flaws of this article was that it completely ignored quite a number of successful movies that do not lie within the writer’s framework of Australian movies. They include:

Mao’s Last Dancer – 2.7m

The Sapphires – 14.2 m

Samson and Delilah – 3.1m

Rabbit Proof Fence – 4m (6.10m)

Japanese Story – 4.5m

Lantana – 6.1m

Somersault – 2.1m

Little Fish – 3.8m

Animal Kingdom – 4.3m

Please note that figures quoted are only Australian box office so they do not include the gross number around the world.

From the list above you can see these movies represented a great diversity of productions and were considered as successful. For me I wonder why they were not included in the discussion of Australian movies by the writer. From what I read, the movies cited as Australian were mostly Anglo centric, which in my view is just a subset of what Australian movies were about. When you consider the list above you will notice that there are a number of movies that represented Australia’s diversity and did very well at the box office. If you want to just consider a subset within a subset i.e. a subset of Anglo centric movies within a subset of failed box office project, of course it would seem that nobody cares about Australian films at all. But is that the truth?

Further the writer considered The Great Gatsby as an Australian movie, why Mao’s Last Dancer was not? And why was Moulin Rouge not cited as an example? For me we can’t just pick and choose convenient “facts” and presents them as the full picture. Certainly there are a lot of failed Australian film projects, but then half-baked pictures would not help to improve the situation.

Then it is the engagement and relationship issues that I raised earlier Personally I do not find a lot of them very engaging. It seems to me a number of projects are what I considered as toothache literature – things that only you can feel but nobody cares. At the same time it seems to me some funders or funding authority stakeholders are like parents who love to spoil their kids and kept on feeding them candies that worsen the situation. When it get worse and all swollen up, it is the audience’s fault and they expect the audience to be dentists to fill the cavity and ease the pain. This kind of immature approach to film making might work if you have a big industry but this simply doesn’t exist in Australia. Personal stories are great, artistic stories are marvelous but then if you want to have an industry to be able to sustain itself with continuous funding, you need revenue and revenue can only come from box office and box office can only come from productions that relate to the audience.

Then there were accusations of talents not staying in Australia. The fact is that the Australian industry did little to nothing to encourage talents to stay. A friend of mine’s experience in getting his film project up and running with local funding authorities seriously signaled how lack of respect these stakeholders have for talents. Also my friend’s experience of nearly being exploited during the process by these stakeholders so their friends could have a finger in the pie further reflected how immature and lack of system it is in Australia. People wanted to go overseas because they have to. The producers and writers of the Saw series were knocked back everywhere in Australia because the stakeholders told them there is nobody who wants to watch that kind of film. They were wrong obviously. The whole franchise scored 873m worldwide. Australian actors go overseas because projects were not facilitating developing new talents. So talents who can’t find work or talents to start to have a name needed to go overseas to sustain a career. And the situation that they could then be invited back to become leads in Australian projects further cemented the necessity to go overseas to make it first. So I wonder whether it is fair for some people to blame talents exporting themselves at all.

The less than rosy situation of the Australian film industry is not ideal but I do believe before pointing fingers at the audience and the talents, critics and key stakeholders in the industry should find a magic mirror to ask the question first to have a reality check. Only by admitting their own responsibilities in this “mess” could help them out. Otherwise the industry will only become rare species of animals that had no choice but to continue to inbreed and drove themselves to their own extinction.

The Value of Art

I recently attended an interview for a Knowledge Management position with a private business. At the opening of the interview, the interviewer was asking me about my involvement in acting and creative arts. She said it is a very unusual combination when knowledge management is about discipline and standardization and acting is about creativity and thinking out of the box. I replied saying that while we need to keep our work processes tightly organized in order to provide standardizations and responsible growth, it is essential that traditions do not tie us down. Creative arts is to help us thinking creatively and out of the box so the organization can continue to grow with new ideas that keep them abreast with or even ahead of time, trends and developments. The interviewer seemed very happy with my answer and I think we had a great interview as she did comment that in a few sentences she already knew I know my stuff.

I have yet to receive another call for this job, but the conversation and a recent speech given by Cate Blanchett when she accepted her honourary degree from Macquarie University did get me think about how I valued art in my life and tried tirelessly to keep that alive.

Creative art has always been an important part in my life and I have always placed a high value on it. I remembered when I attended my one and only TOEFL examination as a teenager they had newly introduced a writing segment in the test. I still remember the question was about the value of art and culture in a society. I was on fire in my response and could not stress enough how important it is for art and culture to be an integral part of our society. I eventually got a full mark for that portion of the test and I was quite happy about it.

I have never been a standard kind of guy who just wants to live a standard kind of life. That of course does not make life any easier for me. However, my emphasis and stress on creative art did provide a lot of buffer for me to stay creative and sane at the same time. I could be happy by just listening to a good piece of music, watching a good movie or play or even reading a good play or book. That kind of happiness has ripple effects on me when I am down and have to faced difficulties in life. It gives me the energy and power to think in a less traditional way and thus avoiding me cornering myself mentally. I might still not be able to figure out a viable solution immediately as some of the real life issues are very pressing and menacing, and no creativity could provide instant solutions for them. However, art does help to provide a bigger playground for me so I have more space to move around in my thoughts. It also provides a bit more positive energy that I need to face these difficulties. Does that mean I don’t worry? No, but it makes me more at ease with situations.

In the wake of this Australian government marginalizing art and creativity through cutting funding for ABC and SBS out of their own political agenda, I felt extremely sad and disappointed with the society we are living in. Art has become a valued commodity in Australia and a lot of time art is about power and whom you know instead of real talent and creativity. If you do not fit into the boxes authorities created for themselves, you probably won’t get a chance to crack it. The current approach of the Australian government to art had stifled its imagination and development in the same way as some totalitarian governments that the Australian government condemned did. Are we qualified to criticize others while we are standing on the same continuum but just a bit behind?

It might sound silly and unrealistic for me to insist on my creative pursuit while trying to make a living in a non-creative art profession. For me both things don’t necessarily need to be segregated. We just need to find a balance. And to find that balance, we need to start with our mind because that is where system and creativity work together. For me art and creativity should not have an expiration date in our life.

I think at the end of the day it is about what you believe in. I believe in a life that earning a living, creating art, appreciate science and engaging in sports can co-exist and enrich each other. I might not see that change in this so called current “Australian way of life” as propagated by this Australian government, but as long as I can I will continue to push this believe forward because you never know what change this could bring when you expected it to.

Racing Harmony

Got a picture in one of my messaging apps on my phone. It was a poster about free health checks for Asians only. Non-Asians are not welcomed. My friend was very offended that a workplace would allow that kind of race specific activity being promoted in the organisation. She found it insulting and racist.

My first reaction to the poster was "Are there Asian specific illness that needs to be checked? Like Asian specific cancer or bird flu (I actually used a different one in my reply but it won't be appropriate to put it on here)?" My friend found my reply funny but still didn't change the fact that this kind of activity or promotion annoyed the hell out of her.

However, the whole conversation got me to think about, "When we accused other people of being racist, do we not have a part of it?" For example whether certain disruptions about racial issues in our society were actually caused by behaviours of people who actually blamed the society for being racist to them?

I cannot speak for other racial groups but as a Chinese Australian living in Australia there were occasions that I wondered whether we did contribute to people not liking us. Not because of us as a race but because of what we were doing? The fact is a lot of times people remember bad things about you and then they start to generalise that this is what they are like. For example when I was at the university many a time I could hear some of my fellow Hong Kong students talking among themselves during classes. Now Cantonese is a very loud language even when you whispered the words. So you can imagine how disruptive this kind of non-stop talking during the class is. Even worse was that when people shushed them these Hong Kong students will give other fellow students dirty looks as if it was their right to talk in class. There were many occasions the lecturer had to ask them to leave. Under such circumstance, is it racist that other people don’t like these Hong Kong students in class?

Take another example, when I was in the college, I have heard some of the mainland Chinese residents saying how they didn’t like the toilets in Australia so they would simply squat over them or squat on them. As a result the “disposal” was not entirely “on target”. They think it was Ok but then I felt bad for the cleaners dealing with regular complaints from other residents how bad the state of the toilets were. When I was working at a University, there were debates about whether teaching certain sector of students to properly use the toilet is racist or not as they were scared of being labelled as a racist University. However, at the same time the maintenance costs of toilets are getting unbearable, as they were not built to be squat on. I personally did not think it is racist but education, but other people might have some different views.

Meanwhile I heard that a friend’s friend’s daughter was complaining how racist the Australian lecturers were when she was studying in Australia. The reason behind this was she never got grades as good as her Australian classmates. Now she was studying a curriculum that requires the mastery of the English language. However, her English, to be honest was not great. It was sufficient I guess to get her into the course but not great to enable her to debate in papers or in class eloquently. Furthermore when she was studying in Australia, she only wanted to hang out with Hong Kong and Macau students. Under such circumstance, with a lack of appreciation of the English language and at the same time no motivation to improve it, how would you expect to do well when it comes to an English demanding course? Is it really because of racism that you did not get good marks?

Further during my years in the higher education sector I have encountered mainland Chinese students who told me I have no right to tell them what is right and what is wrong if I do not speak Mandarin with them. They think they paid tuition in this country to study, they have the right to anything and only a fellow Chinese person who can speak Mandarin can tell them what they can and cannot do. They were at that time the active groups who usually filed complaints about my Australian colleagues for being racists when they were told not to smoke in the no smoking areas, unplugging public computers to charge their mobile phones, reserving seats in a whole area for their friends by pulling off rows of books from the shelves and playing online games when terminals were reserved for online database and catalogue searches only. If that really constitutes racism that could be it – but is it?

Recent reports about some Chinese restaurants in Sydney are charging non-Chinese customers higher prices also brought to light about the whole racism issue in Australia. I personally had Australian friends who were not served by staff members in a Chinese restaurant in a predominantly Chinese suburb because they could not read the Chinese menu. They eventually had to leave because every staff in the restaurant just ignored them. Is this racism? That is something we need to think about before waving the racism banner in the air.

I am not writing this article to defend Australia that there is no racism. That will be painting a completely unrealistic picture, not just of Australia but also of the world. I am not writing this article to accuse my fellow Chinese counterparts of wrong doings either - I must emphasise that I love a lot of them and they are great people with great talents and abilities. But what I am trying to point out is, racism sometimes can be created by certain behaviours that the groups claiming to be victims of it had exhibited. They might not start as racist issues but then the repetition of these issues allowed generalisation to be made about these racial groups. It then gradually develops into racism per se. Racism is a complex issue and not every flavour of racism was based on the same issue. However, as the world becomes more compact, I certainly as once a foreigner living in a foreign land where I now called home, think that we should all contribute to remove misunderstandings and tensions and help build a more understanding and harmonious society. Adopting some reverse racism like tactics like what my friend experienced at her workplace would not help the situation at all. There is no one single antidote to the racism – just a lot of collaborative efforts across the board. And everyone has to take part in it.

I Wonder How I Wonder Why

Walked pass a cast and crew on location yesterday. It was an Australian drama in its second season. The drama features a bunch of 20 something people living in a building in Coogee. It is all good except for the fact that it does not look anything like what I saw in my own suburb. When the first season was launched it was criticized for being overly white and presenting another version of a white washed Australian beach suburb. An Asian Australian actor once tweeted about his disappointment with this new series and was immediately warned by some executives in the production company about his job opportunities with their company because of his comments.

Fast forward to yesterday. I did not know that they actually have a second season until I saw them filming. Nothing had changed. The cast is still all white and even the extras who are beach goers are all white. Girls slim and beach babish and guys are blonde hunks with six packs. At this point I couldn’t really care less about this production. But then when I looked around the crew I noticed that the crewmembers were actually very multi-cultural and diverse. Then I came to realize that while it is ok to be diverse behind the camera, it is not ok to be diverse in front of the camera. I suddenly felt very angry and disappointed. So I left.

The fact that the mainstream Australian media and entertainment industry still refuses to admit the fact that this is a multicultural society in year 2014 is disturbing. The fact that they segregate multiculturalism between on and off screen members of the production is even more disturbing. Multiculturalism on screen is still limited to ABC and SBS but not on other commercial channels (hm is it partly because of this the current government wants to reduce their funding?).  The fact that commercial television only acknowledges multiculturalism in reality shows but not in scripted shows is extremely frustrating, disrespectful and condescending.

Multiculturalism on screen is not a token you exchange for media headlines (as in Neighbours) or a lip service you can pay to quell criticism. Multiculturalism, in 2014 Australia, should be a matter of fact because this is the society we are living in. Past excuses of can’t find multicultural actors are long gone when you look at the theatre school graduates from the last 10 years especially NIDA. If you check out Pearly Productions Minority Box series you will know how many trained non-Anglo actors are waiting for the opportunity to show what they can do – and they are just some of them.

Some people keep saying non-Anglo actors need to write materials and produce these materials to get their voice heard. Yes that is happening but at the same time why is it so important to segregate non-Anglo materials from Anglo materials? When we are all living as normal people in this modern Australian society, why is it that every piece of material that involves non-Anglo actors has to be specifically written for them? I recently worked in a new hospital and there are a number of non-Anglo workers when you just listen to them, they are as Austraaaalian as you can imagine. A lot of them are professionals such as doctors, nurses, administrators and IT professionals. So why is it that as soon as their skin colour is different they have to tell their own stories but not as part of the bigger Australian stories? Are they not Australians when they, well, actually speak Austraaaaalian?

Maybe for us to actually get this message out, I need to reiterate the following:

·      I am Chinese Australian but I have never worked in a Chinese restaurant except when I am in front of the camera

·      I have a number of female Chinese Australian peers who had never whored themselves in real life except when they are being cast in productions

·      I have a number of Muslim friends who have no idea how to make bombs except when being asked to do so on screen

·      I have a number of Indian peers who do not work in news agencies or Indian take away – in fact they are IT professionals and medical professionals

·      I have a number of Middle Eastern peers who had never been involved in Underbelly kind of activities apart from going into the studio or on location

So next time when producers are casting, maybe they should look around and think this twice. Casting agents in my experience are a lot more open minded (and I love them) so who are the gatekeepers? I don’t think I need to articulate that.

It is all good to tell people “I have a lot of non-Anglo friends so I am not biased or racist”. But for me, actions are louder than words. If you do respect your non-Anglo friends and acknowledge them, reflect that in your work. It is not a challenge but a simple acceptance – nothing more nothing less.