Me, Her, Us (Yen-Rong Wong, UQP)
Yen-Rong Wong’s Me, Her, Us encapsulates the Asian female body experience in a post-pandemic world. Wong oscillates between belonging and unbelonging in this bold-yet-anxious slice of Asian-Australian diaspora experience. The work is broken into three parts. The first set of essays, ‘Me’, ventures through sexual exploration, falling in and out of love, faking orgasms, dealing with online predators, and, in the background, an unaffectionate mother. ‘Like many Chinese women, I was raised to be quiet and obedient,’ Wong explains. BDSM became her ‘maladaptive coping mechanism’ in ‘response to early life dynamics’, a way to make back her noise. In the book’s second section ‘Her’, Wong moves to dissect the ‘Oriental-Flower’ and ‘Dragon Lady’ Asian women stereotypes; binaries that, according to Wong, leave room for violence. ‘The type of sex I enjoy is unrelated to my Asian-ness… Sex is simply something I do and enjoy.’ Wong concludes in ‘Us’ that even though the personal can be political, it is not her responsibility to advocate for all Asian-related oppression in her relationships, including the oppression endured by Asian men. In response to the criticism she has received for ‘being in bed with the oppressor’ and dating white people, Wong argues it is ‘counterintuitive for men to demand women fight for them within the framework… rigged against anyone who is not a straight white cis man.’ It is my understanding that Wong is empowering women, particularly Asian women, to decide for themselves how fluid or static their politics are, as marginalised women. Between ‘me, her, us’, Wong creates a safe space for readers of all backgrounds to exist in contradiction. Recommended for readers who enjoyed Jessie Tu’s A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing and Alice Pung’s A Hundred Days.
Books+Publishing reviewer: Helen Nguyen is a writer from Sweatshop Literacy Movement. Her writing has been published by SBS Voices, Hardie Grant, Sydney Opera House, StoryCasters, and Pedestrian TV. She is currently based in Sydney and finishing her law degree. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.
Category: Reviews
