Transpacific Stories

A Special Pride Month Episode: An Intergenerational Conversation on Queer Asia Carman Fung and I share our experiences growing up in Hong Kong, how we first got involved with online queer communities, how we started researching on queer Asian topics, and our experience with queer Asian diasporic communities in, respectively, Vancouver and Melbourne. Read an article by Carman on lesbian dating apps. Read a reflection by Helen on finding queer Asian communities personally and academically. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on June 13, 2023 in Vancouver.

“One is never too old to learn … and expand one’s practices beyond what we conventionally get rewarded for.” Nguyễn Tân Hoàng talks to me about his childhood in Saigon, his family’s traumatic escape from Vietnam, his experience living in a refugee camp on an island off Malaysia and finally moving to California, where he spent his youth and later his formative years as a young artist and scholar. He also shares his thoughts about being part of an academic diaspora, recovering from pandemic burnt out, and cultivating new forms of creativity. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on July 8, 2022 in Vancouver/San Diego

“I have a strong sense of belonging as Kazakh …” Guldana Salimjan talks to me about growing up as an ethnic minority in a Han Chinese environment in Urumqi, her brief time working in Beijing’s arts scenes, how the protests in Urumqi in 2009 became a turning point for her and for ethnic relations in Xinjiang, why she left home for Canada despite her parents’ reluctance, and why she is steadfast in her commitment to tell the ongoing stories of Kazakh communities’ survival and resilience. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on June 22, 2022 in Vancouver

“I feel like I have spent my whole life in a Chinese-language classroom …” Fran Martin talks to me about growing up in Melbourne as a child of practicing psychoanalysts, how she came to study Chinese in school, how as a teenager she wound up in Beijing in 1989 living through the student protests and the aftermath of the June 4 crackdown, how she later became involved in Taiwan’s feminist and LGBTQ scenes, and why she spent the last few years hanging out with young Chinese women studying in Melbourne. Find out more about Fran's new book Dreams of Flight mentioned in the episode. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on March 17/18, 2022 in Vancouver/Melbourne

"I bought a ticket and left with only one suitcase …" Chow Yiu Fai talks to me about his experience growing up in the “resettlement” housing estates in Hong Kong during the 1960s and 70s, his lonely experience at Hong Kong University, how he went from being an evangelical Christian to penning some of the queerest lyrics in Cantopop, how he left Hong Kong to “have a long vacation” in the Netherlands and stayed for more than twenty years, why he had returned to teach in Hong Kong for the past 10 years, and what it means to be “greedy” and be at home in more than one cities. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on August 15/16, 2021 in Vancouver/Hong Kong

“I want to be able to change things and maybe this little vote can do something …” Gaik Cheng Khoo reflects on her childhood growing up in Penang; her early aspirations as a musician which took her to Austin, Texas; her academic career which spans Vancouver (Canada), Singapore, Canberra (Australia), and full circle back to Malaysia. We discuss home and identity, activism and academia, and the unexpectedly emotional act of voting. Co-hosts: Helen Leung and Audrey Yue Recorded on December 29, 2019 in Penang.

“There’s another Winnipeg that I try to carry with me … as I have gone forward to different places.” Guy Beauregard chats with us about growing up in Winnipeg, leaving home to teach English in Japan, pursuing postgraduate studies in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Berkeley, settling in Taiwan for the past sixteen years, and the insights he has gained about settler colonialism, racism, transpacific routes, and the importance of stories. Co-hosts: Helen Leung and Christine Kim Recorded on December 12, 2019 in Vancouver.

“Home is like a texture … it’s like a touch.” Robert Diaz talks to me about his childhood growing up in the Philippines, coming out while attending a Catholic high school, moving to the US and later Canada, negotiating legal residency statuses in three countries, and what home means to him personally and intellectually. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on September 23, 2018 in Vancouver.

“I grew up in a post-socialist, post-Cold War world … in a sense the past is always in the present.” Tan Jia reflects on her childhood in post-1989 Guangdong, her intellectual ferment as an undergraduate student in Beijing, her adventures studying film in Los Angeles, and her life today in post-Umbrella Movement Hong Kong. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on August 14, 2018 in Shanghai.

“I’m living within translation.” Jane Park tells lively stories about growing up as an “Asian American in the south,” her culinary memory of Korea, her experience living in different parts of the U.S. and Australia, and her embodied relation to language, race, and ethnicity. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on July 30, 2017 in Seoul.

“I am what they call a true postcolonial child.” Audrey Yue reflects on her childhood memories of social engineering campaigns, her Cantonese and Peranakan heritage, her migrant experience and encounter with racism in Canada and Australia, and her emotional return to Singapore after being away for over thirty years. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on July 21, 2017 in Singapore.

“I was literally a product of the Vietnam War.” John Nguyet Erni talks about his Filipino-Vietnamese heritage, his childhood growing up in Hong Kong, his multi-generational connection to the U.S., and the moment he discovered a feeling of home. Host: Helen Leung Recorded on May 31, 2017 in Vancouver.