Zhi Yi Saw reviews Me, Her, Us by Yen Rong Wong
Me, Her, Us
by Yen Rong Wong
ISBN 9780702266201
Reviewed by ZHI YI SAW
Me, Her, Us, by award-winning non-fiction writer and art critic Yen-Rong Wong, is her debut collection of memoir-essays that centres around her investigation and views of various relationships: Her own with sex (Me), her relationship with her mother (Her), and the wider relationship between Asian women and sex (Us). Much of Wong’s previous works also tackled similar subject matters of race, gender, and family from the perspective of a Chinese-presenting woman, like “Things Left Unsaid,” winner of the 2022 Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer. Through a myriad of statistics, media critique, and personal anecdotes; she offers an unfiltered look at Australian society and the Chinese diaspora on their treatment and internalised expectations set on Asian women.
Many expectations in Chinese culture are implied, inherently known. Parents aren’t expected
to have “the talk” with their children nor are there any loud communal sermons in immigrant
Chinese communities that promote, instruct on, or lambast the act. Only silent judgement. It’s
simultaneously an issue that belongs to the private and the collective. To be kept to yourself,
yet family and culture are supposed to be taken into consideration. Breaking through this
lens, Yen-Rong Wong de-stigmatises the taboo of sex by humorously detailing her path of
sexual exploration, from masturbating in her childhood home to being suspended by rope
nude above fellow partygoers in a Melbourne warehouse.
Wong aims to normalise the concept of female pleasure during sex, typically seen as of lesser
importance to the male orgasm if not an outright myth. She recalls deliberately not making
noise during sex, curbing her bodily functions, because she was afraid of inconveniencing
other people, as Chinese women were raised to be “quiet and obedient” (31). Instead, she
could only truly express herself in her lonesome, through masturbation. The ability to control
every aspect of sex was a revolutionary, if accidental, discovery for her.
My masturbatory adventures in that big empty house gave me my first taste of
freedom – of being in control of my body and my sexual pleasure. I was able
to be as loud as I wanted while I did whatever I wanted, a concept that was
foreign to me at the time. (27)
Despite her newfound independence, lack of sexual education nearly leads to serious injury
from experimentation with various household items. From this experience, Wong emphasises
the need for the increased prominence of female sexual education as well as reliable support
groups that can provide clearance and safety. As Wong grew away from her parents, she
would enter more open and accepting social circles, allowing her more freedom to explore
her sexuality. Through attending numerous sex parties, she would discover an unusual sense
of emancipation, ironically, in bondage. Specifically, a feeling of powerlessness in an
environment where she knows her consent and wellbeing are respected. Wong details the
enchanting freedom felt in her rope-bound flight over a BDSM scene:
“I feel something approximating relief; I feel more myself than I can ever imagine being when I’m on the
ground.” (74).
As Wong engages in self-discovery as an individual in Australia, her connection with her
Chinese roots and parents wanes. Part of this comes from the author’s loss of her language,
resulting in a “loss of identity they [children of immigrants] can’t ever really get back” (113).
The disappearance of her language doesn’t just entail forgetting the words but also the correct
contexts and tones for their intended meanings.
Throughout the text, sentences and paragraphs are made up of Chinese characters, dialogue
from Wong’s parents and passages from literary works. When presupposing a hypothetical
conversation with her mother where she suggests being more open on the subject of sex like
westerners, her mother replies, “那昃外國人的想法我們華人不會講這的話” (34) or “We
Chinese won’t talk about what foreigners think”. With few exceptions, closure from
accompanying translation isn’t provided. Though the meaning can sometimes be inferred
through context, parts of this book will remain a mystery to much of its English-speaking
readers. This feeling of loss and missing out that Wong feels in losing her language, identity,
and means of communication with her parents is thus creatively thrust onto the reader.
Beyond the linguistic gap is her mother’s emotional guardedness, her desire to maintain the
persona of the domineering authority figure over her daughter. In childhood, Wong’s mother
would cane her for speaking out of line. In adulthood, their “clashes were never loud but they
were still venomous, barbs traded through glances, a roll of the eyes, or malicious
compliance” (83).
Wong laments the experiences she will never have with her mother due to the language
barriers and emotional restriction. She longs for the emotional outpour and clear
understanding, like the western mothers and daughters on her TV have. What she couldn’t
express in the complexities of person, Wong has tried through text.
I’m just glad to have this opportunity to talk back to my mother, to say all the
things I wasn’t able to say when I was younger, and all the things I don’t think
I’ll be ever able to say to her in person. This is my way of being heard; by
getting it all down on paper, I’m releasing all these things that have been left
unsaid, allowing myself to name then on my own terms, to make them real.
(136)
Despite the personal catharsis felt, Wong also contemplates the ethical dilemma of writing
out her personal experiences with her Chinese family. Part of this stems from being raised
under a two-millennia-old regiment of filial piety focused on “face” and family reputation,
many times at the cost of emotional repression. With the advent of globalisation and being
part of an immigrant family in the Brisbane suburbs, a whole new dimension arises that
agonisingly plagues any critical lens on Asian home life. Was she contributing to
orientalisation? Through her incidental portrayal of her mother as a strict overachieving
matriarch, was she lending credence to the “tiger mom” stereotype?
Wong delicately explores the complexities of presenting Asian subjectivity to the Australian
mainstream, careful to avoid advocacy for either cultural relativism or civilising missions. As
she points out the issues with many Asian cultures’ treatment of women, she remains wary of
the historical use of perceived backwardness by colonial states to justify their subjugation and
dehumanisation of subjects, so often populations in the Global South.
Wong contextualises the place of Asians in western society and their relation to whiteness.
Many Asians see it as both an aspiration and something to avoid to protect their culture.
Asian women are called “race traitors” for dating white men, Asian men will seek white
women as status symbols to counter their own perceived emasculation, and Asian
communities historically attacked other racial minorities to become the “model minority”
(198). Model for who though?
Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks explores race relations in the context of colonialism
and the tendency of colonised and non-white men to develop an inferiority complex. Fanon
notes how they seek approval from white society through imitation, speaking, dressing, and
having sex like white men (9); to put on a new face. The pursuit of white women becomes a
reclamation of something lost, masculinity in the case of Asian men, “By loving me, she [the
white woman] proves to me that I am worthy of a white love. I am loved like a white man. I
am a white man” (45). It’s through this craving for whiteness that many oppressed peoples
tear each other down. The fight for Asian rights therefore mustn’t rally around or defend its
patriarchal practices but seek to confront them, only then can progress be made.
Me, Her, Us offers blunt and biting critiques on the treatment of Asian women by wider
Australian society and their respective cultural enclaves. The main remedy to patriarchy and
racism recommended in the book is exposure. Exposure to female bodily functions, exposure
to female sexual pleasure, and exposure to Asian women. Through her book, Yen-Rong
Wong breaks the rule of face and lays herself bare for all to see. The complexities of warmth
and coldness that melded in on each other to create a Chinese family that was neither hell nor
heaven but one that existed within its circumstance. Despite the utilisation of numerous
academic sources to contextualise her observations, Wong avoids their sterile and sometimes
patronising language. Her first-person voice, coated with humour and familiarity throughout,
creates an egalitarian relationship with readers. Not only is the author’s knowledge imparted
on the reader, but also her anxieties, questions, and unknowns. Rather than an “objective”
western anthropologist eyeing the mysterious and exotic Orient from afar for the benefit of a
solely western audience, she’s a subject that has taken over the study.
Though the book begins with a declaration of its intention being for young Asian women, it
provides important insights for people outside of this segment in society. Me, Her, Us ends
with rousing intersectional calls to action: for Asian women to not just be seen but also heard,
for white readers to tear down the veil of otherness and seek understanding, and for all of her
“yellow fellows” (220) to know they’re not alone.
Citation
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox, Grove Press, 2008.
ZHI YI SAW is a 23-year old writer from Penang, Malaysia. He has an interest in historical fiction and non-fiction works concerning the postcolonial period and the resulting explorations of new identities. He is currently an international student studying for a Master’s degree in creative writing at Macquarie University. He also graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2023.