by Alice Pung
I was born and grew up in Italy, a beautiful country to visit, but also a difficult country to live in for new generations.
In 2006, I packed up my suitcase and I left Italy with the man I love. We bet on Australia. I didn’t know much about Australia before coming – I was just looking for new opportunities, I guess.
And I liked it right from the beginning! Australian people are resourceful, open-minded and always with a smile on their faces. I think all Australians keep in their blood a bit of the pioneer heritage, regardless of their own birthplace.
Here I began a new life and now I’m doing what I always dreamed of: I illustrate stories. Here is the place where I’d like to live and to grow up my children, in a country that doesn’t fear the future.
Vietnam is a small country in Southeast Asia once owned by France and occupied by Japan during World War II. From 1955 to 1975, Vietnam was divided into the North and South and both were at war with each other. Communist North Vietnam wanted Vietnam to become one nation, but the South wanted to remain independent. American and Australian troops helped South Vietnam but ultimately lost the war.
After the war ended, thousands of South Vietnamese were sent to ‘re-education’ camps. The Chinese in Vietnam, like Marly’s family, were called the Hoa. The new government took away many of their businesses and taxed them heavily. Many Hoa fled Vietnam from 1978 onwards for a better life abroad.
From 1975 to 1995, almost 800,000 people left Vietnam by boat. The first destination for these ‘boat people’ were the neighbouring countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong. Many of the refugees did not survive the journey. Like Marly’s cousins, boat people stayed in refugee camps in these countries until most were resettled in France, Canada, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Australia’s ‘White Australia Policy’ discouraged non-white immigrants from settling here. But the White Australia Policy ended in 1973, and the refugees from Vietnam were the first large group of Asians to be resettled in Australia. They lived in working-class suburbs like Sunshine in Victoria and Cabramatta in NSW. A quarter of the refugees from Vietnam in Australia were Chinese, like Marly.
Vietnamese refugees often faced the journey in fishing boats like this one. The trip was treacherous and many people did not survive because of storms, pirates, and overcrowded and unsafe boats.
‘I’ve got a job,’ Marly bragged to her classmates at school on a Monday morning.‘A real job.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Kane. ‘What do you do then?’ Kane was the class eavesdropper. He liked getting involved in other people’s business.
‘I iron collars.’
‘What, doing housework for your mum? That’s not a real job,’ replied Kane.
‘No, I mean ironing collars on shirts, Kane, you derbrain. The sorts of shirts you buy in the shops.’
‘Isn’t that illegal? You’re still only ten.’
‘No, it’s not, because my mum is my boss,’ said Marly. ‘She’s the one paying me.’
‘Then that’s not real work,’ sneered Kane. ‘It’s pocket money.’
‘Not if you get paid ten cents a collar.’
‘Then you’re stupid. That’s not even worth it.’ Kane shrugged.
‘Do the maths, you idiot. I can iron one hundred collars over the weekend easy.’
Kane thought for a while, then his eyebrows shot up. ‘Woah,’ he breathed. ‘That’s ten dollars. What are you going to do with that much money?’
Marly knew exactly what she was going to do. For the past month, all the kids at school had been collecting Garbage Gang swap cards. The Garbage Gang were cartoon characters that weren’t on television, or comic strips, or anywhere else except on special Garbage Gang cards. They were modelled on Cabbage Patch Kids, with similar puffy faces and dimpled hands, but the Garbage Gang had names like Virus Iris, Potty Scotty and Dead Ted. Ray Decay was missing most of his teeth and surrounded by lollies, while Art Apart had his arms and legs loose on the floor. Nasty Nick looked like a vampire, and Guillo Tina was just about to get her head chopped off. There was also Flat Pat who was run over by a steamroller, and Bony Joanie who was a skeleton.
Even the boys collected these cards. ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if they really did make Garbage Gang dolls?’ Marly had heard Kane say to Graham one day. ‘I would totally get Adam Bomb.’ Adam Bomb was a boy character in white socks and a blue suit, detonating the black box of a bomb to make his head explode.
Marly didn’t have a single Garbage Gang card. Her parents would not allow them.
‘What a waste of money,’ her mother scoffed. Her mother would not let them buy anything that they could make, and cousin Rosie – who had recently changed her name from Tuyet – was great at making things. For her last birthday, Rosie had made Marly a set of UNO cards. Each one was cut in brown cardboard the exact size and shape of a UNO card, with the rounded corners. They had been covered with white paper and coloured in with texta. It must have taken Rosie hours to make the set. Marly loved playing with her cousin’s cards at home when they came to visit, but she knew they weren’t the real deal – they didn’t have the same satisfying slipperiness as the genuine UNO, and they were too thick. It was not a present she could bring to school and share with her friends.
‘Ask your cousin to make you the Rubbish Bin cards,’ Marly’s mother had suggested. ‘She’s a good drawer.’
‘It’s not the same, Mum!’
‘Well, I’m not letting you waste a dollar on bits of cardboard. That’s ridiculous. A dollar will get us three bunches of green leafy vegetables.’
Every afternoon, Marly would come home and have to wash these vegetables because her mother was busy working on her sewing machine. On weekends, her aunty Tam would come over to help her mother sew. That was when Marly got to see her two cousins, eleven-year-old Rosie and seven-year-old Jacky. They lived fifteen minutes away on the seventeenth floor of a brown-and-grey block of Housing Commission flats.
A week ago, Rosie had been in the garage ironing a stack of men’s shirts very carefully when Marly called her out to play. ‘I can’t, Marly, I’m working,’ she said.
‘What do you mean you’re working?’ Marly stuck her head into the garage.
‘She’s helping us iron shirts,’ said Marly’s mum. ‘Unlike you, always mucking about all the time. And she’s earning money.’
Marly’s ears perked up. ‘What?’
‘That’s right. For every shirt she irons, she gets paid eighty cents.’
‘Ten shirts, eight dollars,’ replied Rosie with a smile that Marly thought looked more like a smirk.
‘I want to iron shirts too!’ demanded Marly. ‘How come you never let me do stuff like that?’
‘Because you’re too easily distracted, that’s why,’ scolded Marly’s mum. ‘And you do things half-heartedly before you decide you’d rather be playing outside with Jacky. Do you think we’d let you hold a hot iron to a shirt that your aunty and I have spent three hours making?’
‘No fair!’ protested Marly. She was so cross – she’d learned a lot since Rosie and Jacky had come to live with them, and her mother had often said how helpful she’d become around the house.
In the end, her aunty Tam suggested that they let her iron the interfacing onto the shirt collars that were stacked in a cardboard box on the floor. The interfacing was what made shirt collars stiff. It was a little piece of plastic material that you slipped inside the collar of the shirt and then ironed into place.
‘Those are pretty easy to do,’ said Aunty Tam.
But Marly’s mum still hesitated. ‘What if she burns one?’
‘Well,’ replied Aunty Tam, ‘far better than sewing a whole new shirt. It’s just a detached collar.’
‘So how much do I get paid for each collar?’ Marly asked.
‘Aiyoh!’ her mother cried. ‘Consider yourself lucky we’re giving you this experience! Will you listen to her – talking about making money already and not even
grown up yet!’
Aunty Tam laughed. ‘Come on, if we’re going to pay Rosie, we’d better pay Marly as well. She’s an enterprising girl.’
‘Fine then,’ sighed Marly’s mother. ‘Fine. We’ll pay you ten cents a collar. And don’t you dare complain! Your cousin’s ironing is much more difficult than yours. All you have to do is run a hot iron on this strip of interfacing so that it sticks to the inside of the shirt collar.’
And that was how Marly got her first weekend job.
‘I’m going to get the whole set of Garbage Gang cards,’ Marly had repeated to her classmates that Friday afternoon.
All week she had shown off about it, because she wanted to make sure at least some of the kids brought their own cards to school on Monday so she could swap with them.
Marly sat listlessly on the sofa on Monday morning, watching a television commercial before school.
‘Come on Marly, get a move on!’ Her mum unzipped her schoolbag and shoved in her sandwich and Prima juice.
Marly didn’t move. She was still angry at her mother for tricking her.
Marly’s mum stood in front of the television and switched it off. ‘You might not care about being late but that doesn’t mean you can make your brother late too.’
‘I’m so tired from working all weekend,’ Marly complained as her mother walked them to school. ‘I ironed a hundred collars and didn’t even get paid.’
‘Of course you got paid,’ said Marly’s mother, losing her patience. ‘You got paid very well.’
Marly heaved a big sigh and continued walking. It was drizzling and that made her even grumpier. Soon they reached the school gate. Marly could see a gang of kids already there, waiting for her.
She felt suddenly ill. How was she going to explain why she didn’t have the cards?
5 QUESTIONS FOR ALISON LLOYD, AUTHOR OF THE LETTY BOOKS
How are you and Letty similar, and how are you different?
Letty loves lace and those gorgeous Victorian dresses because I do and I wanted to have them in the Our Australian Girl books! Letty is a younger sister, whereas I was a bossy older sister, but we are both trustworthy and responsible. Letty loves babies, more than I did when I was a kid. And she had a tougher childhood than I did.
If Letty were around today, what would she do on Saturday mornings?
I think she would lie in bed and her younger brothers and sisters would climb in and snuggle with her. She might sing songs with them. Later she might talk Lavinia into making cupcakes together.
Alison, when you sat down to start the OAG books, what was the first sentence you wrote?
‘The coachman dumped the hope chest in the street.’ I started at the beginning.
What’s one thing you wish you could do really well but have always been too timid to try?
When I was a girl I always thought soccer looked like fun. But I wasn’t good at sports, I had no brothers, and there were no football teams for girls then. So I never tried. I also wish I could ride a horse properly. One day . . .
Do you have one piece of advice for OAGs everywhere?
Every Australian girl’s story is unique and precious. You are significant whether you’re in a book or not! As Abner says to Letty in the first book, ‘”He tells the number of the stars; He calls them all by name.” If the Lord God can tell the stars apart, he knows me too. And you.’
5 QUESTIONS FOR DAVINA BELL, AUTHOR OF THE ALICE BOOKS
How are you and Alice similar, and how are you different?
Alice thinks she always has to be perfect – that it’s her job to make sure everyone and everything is okay – and that’s just what I was like when I was a little girl.
But Alice has much more discipline that I do. If I could work as hard at my writing as she works at her dancing, I think I’d feel a lot better! Also, we both like chubby babies, homemade cakes and Dalmatians.
If Alice were around today, what would she do on Saturday mornings?
Ballet, of course! I think she’d have an extra-long class with Miss Lillibet (first barre work and then on pointe), and when they’d finished, Little would bring them a scrumptious morning tea.
When you sat down to start the OAG books, what was the first sentence you wrote?
‘Papa Sir, why did the war make everyone so horrible? You weren’t there, you didn’t see, but it was awful.’
I started right at the end of Book 4, so I knew where I had to end up.
Davina, what’s one thing you wish you could do really well but have always been too timid to try?
Stand-up comedy! And that’s not a joke!
Do you have one piece of advice for OAGs everywhere?
I’d give the same advice that Papa Sir gives Alice, which is this: Make beautiful art with everything that you do – how you live each day.
It’s wonderful to have big dreams and goals and ambitions, but it’s how you do the small things in life – how you talk to people, the effort you put into the things you do – that will shape how your life turns out.
5 QUESTIONS FOR GABRIELLE WANG, AUTHOR OF THE POPPY BOOKS
Gabi, how are you and Poppy similar, and how are you different?
Poppy is much braver than I would ever be. She lived in a time where you had to be brave. In the 1860’s there were not the comforts of today and there were many dangers out on the road like bushrangers. Poppy likes to ride horses and so do I. And Poppy loves her dog Fisher, like I love my dog, Hero.
If Poppy were around today, what would she do on Saturday mornings?
Poppy would read a book while she’s having breakfast. She’s reading Tiger in the Bush. Then she would go outside and climb a tree. The tree looks over into her best friend, Noni’s back yard. She would call out to Noni, and together they would get on their bikes and go on an all-day adventure to the beach.
When you sat down to start your OAG books, what was the first sentence you wrote?
I don’t remember what my first sentence was. I plotted all the Poppy books out in one sitting so it would have been something like, ‘Poppy lives at an Aboriginal mission near Echuca’. It sounds boring doesn’t it? Of course you can’t begin a novel like that. Nobody would read past the first page. It is only after a lot of research is done and some rough drafts are complete that I begin to try and make the sentences sing.
What’s one thing you wish you could do really well but have always been too timid to try?
Gliding. I would love to have the feeling of being completely free, soaring in the sky with only the wind to carry me. I have tried hang gliding and was really scared when I had to jump off the cliff. But I didn’t go very far and I was with a friend. I think gliding would be different. I could be up in the clouds for hours.
Gabi, do you have one piece of advice for OAGs everywhere?
If you want to be really good at something you need to practise. Talent is only a small part of it. If you have a passion, then practise that passion every day.
5 QUESTIONS FOR PENNY MATTHEWS, AUTHOR OF THE NELLIE AND RUBY BOOKS
How are you and Nellie similar, and how are you different?
My first reaction on reading this question was that Nellie O’Neill and I aren’t a bit alike. Nellie has experienced unbelievable hardship, and yet she is brave and optimistic and resilient – far more so than I could ever be. And she’s passionate and hot-tempered, while I am usually fairly calm. But when I thought about it some more . . . We both believe that who you are is much more important than what you are. We both hate injustice and prejudice. We both value the love of family above everything else. We are both superstitious. And we both love animals, especially cats! So perhaps we are quite similar after all.
If Nellie were around today, what would she do on Saturday mornings?
In 1849 Nellie’s Saturday mornings would be like every other morning. She would get out of bed and start work at about five-thirty. She would make sure the kitchen stove was well alight, and she’d start to prepare breakfast, first making bread from t
he bread dough she’d set to rise the night before. So if Nellie was around today, I think she’d sleep in for as long as she could. She’d read in bed until it was time for breakfast, and she’d read some more while she was eating her muesli. (She’d be reading at least three books at once.) After that her best friend Mary Connell would come around, and they’d go off together to their Irish dancing class.
Penny, when you sat down to start the OAG books, what was the first sentence you wrote?
So this was South Australia! It’s hotter than a good turf fire, Nellie thought.
What’s one thing you wish you could do really well but have always been too timid to try?
I’ve always wished I could speak a foreign language fluently. But I wouldn’t say I was too timid to try – just too lazy! I’d be much too timid to do bungee jumping or white-water rafting, but I don’t think I’d want to do these things even if I could . . .
Do you have one piece of advice for OAGs everywhere?
Be true to yourself, and never give up. You just don’t know what wonderful thing might be waiting for you around the corner.
5 QUESTIONS FOR SHERRYL CLARK, AUTHOR OF THE ROSE BOOKS
How are you and Rose similar, and how are you different?
I think Rose and I are alike in that we both like to think things through and make a decision, rather than putting it off. I suspect Rose is braver than me, and she is definitely better at sport than me. We both love reading, though.
If Rose were around today, what would she do on Saturday mornings?
She’d be playing cricket in the summer! In the winter, I think she would be eating a large breakfast and looking forward to going to the footy.