Journal
Articles
Teaching Australia
I AM THIRTY-EIGHT and tired. I’m only a third of the way through my class roll, a list that hurts my heart if I study it for too long. But I know what to do with these students. I’m an excellent teacher. I know how to bring them together. I am able to create a feeling of family and safety and security. In my classroom they know they can take risks and try new things and experience failure while being supported by me and by each other.
No permit for dignity
EARLY IN MY life in Australia, during the year I spent on a bridging visa that included no work...
On being Australian
MY FATHER, ALEX Carey, a fourth-generation Australian, was a lefty and an activist, who worked long hours as a...
Caius Atlas
THE BABY-NAME BOOK is the size of a pack of cards, left on top of a bin outside the...
I n t e r e s t i n g
NOT MANY PEOPLE like me. I have no friends. And I would like to know why. People begin friendly...
Back Again
Chain-smoking karang guni guy pushes his bike on the leftmost side, along the double yellow lines as taxis slither...
Of Durians and Vipers
BLACK AND YELLOW pit vipers lazed in durian trees, sleepy and fat under the Penang sun. Visitors to Mr...
Racial Amnesia
IN RETROSPECT, IT was inevitable. But I know now there couldn’t have been a better place to have a...
Abi nako
THE PHRASE ABI NAKO has fascinated me since moving to Davao where I’ve had to make sense of the...
Bastard Child
‘MY MUM IS pretty devastated about it, you know,’ my friend says. ‘She completely trusted this man and then...
Where are all the nice Asian girls?
STUART PICKS ME up from the train station. Because we are in the country, everything is close by so...
Hero
‘WASN’T AH MA your hero? Didn’t you write about that somewhere?’ Robert asks, eyes locked ahead onto the black...
