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 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