Susan Wyndham and Jane Hutcheon at the Byron Writers Festival. Image: Rory Banwell.
In a harrowing but inciteful conversation at Byron Writers Festival, Susan Wyndham broke down Jane Hutcheon’s latest book China Baby Love.
The book tells the tale of Linda Shum, an Australian grandmother who took on China’s orphanage problem after seeing the terrible conditions children were forced to live in.
Wyndham began the conversation by tracing Hutcheon’s long family history with China and Hong Kong. Stretching back to Hutcheon’s great, great grand-uncle, and how her family have lived, worked and loved in China for a long time.
After spending years working as a foreign correspondent and journalist in China, Hutcheon was drawn back to China, like ‘an old familiar friend’, through the story of Linda Shum and her orphanages.
In China Baby Love, Hutcheon tells Shum’s story of how China’s ‘throwaway’ kids and the appalling conditions they were forced to live in led to Shum’s 20-year affair with a country whose economic prosperity overshadowed its practice of using orphanages as a dumping ground for unwanted children.
Wyndham, who worked with Hutcheon’s brother at the Sydney Morning Herald, discussed the Hutcheon dynasty of journalists and whether her career was inevitable. Hutcheon said she tried to divert from her parent’s history in print by working in television, but growing up in Hong Kong, she always saw her life events in headlines.
As a budding journalist, one of the most interesting parts of the discussion for me was around Hutcheon’s recollections as an unprepared foreign correspondent.
She told of a phone call from ABC’s Kerry O’Brien asking why she hadn’t prepared a story when the documentary The Dying Rooms busted open the underbelly of Chinese orphanages in 1995. Hutcheon said that despite that conversation being intimidating, it led to a beautiful and ongoing friendship with Kerry O’Brien.
Concluding the talk, the subject turned to adoption. After telling the successful adoption story of a severely disabled Chinese boy by an American family, Hutcheon discussed the policy difficulties Australians face when considering adoption.
Despite there being a fast track process for Americans nothing exists in Australia. Alluding to the fact that it of course would be best for Chinese children to stay with Chinese families, the prospects are bleak for disabled teenagers who face a life in ‘Old People’s Orphanages’ if they aren’t adopted by age 14.
John Safran and Sophie Hamley on stage. Image: Rory Banwell.
John Safran’s new book Depends What You Mean by Extremist delves into the gritty underground of extremism in Australia. His talk, however, did not.
John Safran see himself more as ‘something approximating a journalist’, he tells session chair Sophie Hamley, a publisher for Hachette Australia, and it is his journalistic instinct for a story that is always his starting point for creativity, even if that instinct puts him in harm’s way.
Australia’s fascination with Safran likely comes from this authenticity, creativity and ability to find a unique skew on topics. He describes it as the ‘schtick of plonking comedy into the real world’, particularly in situations that may not be seen as ‘comedic’.
Safran attended an ultra-conservative all-boys Orthodox Jewish high school, and it was here that a deep and ongoing fascination with religion arose, saying that it’s ‘a good starting point for humour’. Indeed, his many immersive journeys into different religions, which began in Race Around the World and continued in John Safran versus God, have led to him being baptised many times, by many different denominations.
‘I’ve got lots of good things in me. I’m very protected’.
Safran spoke about his most recent baptism, while writing Depends What You Mean By Extremist, where he inadvertently was baptised at an anti-Islam church which was then used in their online marketing. Oops.
This story personified one of the greatest changes in his work. Where previously he was afforded a sense of anonymity when creating content, he is now subjected to constant scrutiny when his presence is captured at events without context – such as Reclaim Australia rallies – and posted online.
Safran said that due to this he had been forced to disguise himself. He donned a large beard and Akubra and took on the persona of a farmer. Without this costume, Safran would not be able to fully immerse himself in the worlds he investigates.
In answer to an audience question about why he had switched to writing after years of film making, Safran cited these changes in technology and accessibility to smart phones as one of the reasons for the change. Not only does writing allow him to dig deeper into a subject matter, he is not restrained by funding, pitching or the traditional constraints that come with documentary film making.
Books are an accessible format, Safran said, and Hamley brought him back to how easily his writing flows and whether this is purposeful. Safran attributed his writing style to both the American pulp and crime fiction books he was reading at the time of researching, and his interest in dialogue and the way people talk. Safran describes his editing process as ‘ruthless’. Even after recording hours of interviews, he wasn’t afraid to chuck out chunks of information, regardless of how hard he’d worked for it.
Even though I’d come to hear about his new book, I wasn’t disappointed. The genuineness and friendliness that has always made him so endearing shone through and created an engaging, hilarious, conversation.
Mark Holden on Music Memoir Panel. Image : Rebecca May
Australian Idol judge, Mark Holden made some waves during a fascinating session on music memoir at Byron Writers Festival.
In particular, the former pop idol spoke about the changing state of music, and targeted the ingrained racism in the industry in the decades through to the ‘90s.
Now a practising barrister, it’s obviously an issue that motivates Holden and he has spoken about the issue of representation in the music industry before. Obviously drawing on his experience from Australian Idol with Guy Sebastian, he said during the session that Dami Im would not have been signed prior to the 2000s.
‘The gatekeepers (to the music industry) were a handful of white men,’ said Holden. There were barely any people of colour other than Kahmahl, Marcia Hines and a handful of Indigenous artists. Diversity was not high on the agenda when music production was such an expensive venture.
Holden spoke about changes in technology and, despite there being problematic elements such as copyright, licensing and artists payments, he did believe that applications like Shazam open up independent music to be discovered easily.
Holden shared a story about Shazamming the theme song to the BBC show Broadchurch and finding the entire back catalogue of Icelandic artist Olafur Arnalds (who wrote the show’s theme song). An artist he now uses to work out to..
The panel discussing musical memoirs included the Hon Barry Jones, Andrew Ford, Mark Holden and was chaired by Mandy
Nolan.Andrew Ford, Mark Holden, Hon Barry Jones and Mandy Nolan on Music Memoir Panel. Image: Rory Banwell
