Heartbreak can yield unexpected dividends.
When the boy she was dating dumped her, Cat Yen poured her emotions into a story of pain, privilege, class and identity.
Today, the Melbourne data analyst, 25, was announced as the winner of the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition for her entry, – a work born out of memories of a tough childhood as the daughter of impoverished Chinese immigrants who tried, and failed, to make a new prosperous life in Melbourne.
Described by the judges as a piece of “masterly storytelling”, Yen’s award-winning tale brings clashing worlds to life in her take on the underbelly of the Asian immigrant dream.
An ill-fated relationship with a rich, privileged boyfriend is the lens through which she examines the cleaving effects of class and money on everything from dating politics, to the ability to have a creative life, to interior décor: “when you are poor, what you own mostly says you are poor…almost everything I own is either a bed, for eating, or soap. Stories are an extravagance I still can’t afford.”
There are sharply observed gems like that all through her piece: from the outrageously priced cocktails now available in her public housing neighbourhood, to the benign dehumanising of the Asian experience: “never having read a book, dad doesn’t know that Asian pathos is only ever given value by devastating historical magnitude: dictatorship, civil war, famine.”
“What I really wanted for anyone to get from reading this piece was that even if you grew up with not a lot, you can still be a very complex person with a story and have something to say.” Source: Supplied
Most striking is her portrayal of what happens when the Asian immigrant rags-to-riches story is never realised.
Hers is a childhood mired in her dad’s alcoholism and her mother’s endless struggle to make ends meet: a string of failed Chinese restaurants, low-wage jobs in a biscuit factory and as a cashier.
She will give her $5,000 prize to her mother, a giant figure in her life. “In China when she was a child, there was the hukou system where if you were born in the countryside you had to stay there. She wanted to go to school, and she wanted a better shot at life. She came by herself at 21.”
Raised in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Yen says she always wanted to write.
I always felt that if I wrote about my life, it would elicit quite a shocked reaction.
She draws inspiration from words outside books: from hip-hop lyrics, snatches of conversation, television dialogue. She dabbled in journalism and edited academic journals, but the imperatives of earning a living put an end to any creative dreams: as she writes, “I traded writing stories for code.”
When she was dumped, an inner creative dam broke.
“He really made me feel conscious about my upbringing and where I was in life and I really felt suddenly after years of not writing anything, this great desire to write something down.”
She speaks frankly about her battle to overcome the stigma of writing about childhood poverty.
“If you haven’t gone through some difficult things, it’s fairly easy to write about your life and you don’t have to feel ashamed about it. I always felt that if I wrote about my life, it would elicit quite a shocked reaction.
“What I really wanted for anyone to get from reading this piece was that even if you grew up with not a lot, you can still be a very complex person with a story and have something to say.”
Winning the competition has proved a major boost to her creative writing hopes.
“I would love to be able to write more. When I was at university, I won a scholarship to live and work and study in Thailand, and a lot of people I met there were political dissidents.
“I was writing a thesis on military rule, and for many years I wanted to write about love under military rule. It’s a subject of great interest. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to write something that isn’t related to love in some way.”
Read the winning entries
SBS Emerging Writers' Competition 2021 Winner: Cat Yen
