Discussing Being Under the White Gaze

There were a lot of people waiting for Cheung to sign books

This evening I went to a book talk at the Vancouver Public Library featuring journalist Christopher Cheung with his new book, Under the White Gaze, which talks about how people of colour are represented in the media and how we can do better when reporting about them.

The room was packed out tonight, many of them Cheung's friends, and many Asians who felt the topic resonated with them.

Author Kevin Chong was tasked with asking Cheung some questions about himself and his book before the Q&A session.

Cheung's first book

Cheung explained he grew up in Oakridge and as a child his classmates were multicultural, as illustrated by the snacks they shared during recess, from Japanese dried seaweed to Iranian fruit leather. He feels this informed him of the Vancouver he lived in and felt there were stories to tell.

That's what led him to become a journalist, working for the Vancouver Courier and then Metro Daily, both of which he notes no longer exist. He has been at the Tyee for many years now and went from writing 500-word news articles in the Courier to now 2,000 words in the Tyee.

A good example of how minorities are not represented was when Cheung saw how developers prided themselves on creating tax-free spaces for residents to create community gardens and share the fruits of their labour.

He found this quite odd considering his grandfather and his neighbours have been growing vegetables for decades and sharing their harvests. Cheung used this as a way to get other mainstream media to realise they are not observing what is happening around them and just following a press release.

Chong noted a chapter in the book focuses on the four Ds: Darlings, Deviance, Delicious, and Damage.

When asked to explain, Cheung said it was inspired by CBC broadcaster Duncan McCue, who asked an Indigenous elder how they were covered in the media. He replied: drumming, dancing, drunk and dead.

He is very passionate about Vancouver

Cheung came up with his own four Ds when it came to ethnic minorities:

Darlings are model minorities, extreme examples of people who work very long hours and that is considered success despite the heavy toll;

Deviance is criminalising people of colour. One example is complaining about Chinese signs in Richmond;

Delicious is about ethnic food stories, and "calendar journalism" where Chinese food is covered during Chinese New Year;

Damage is about refugees, victims of colour who have terrible things that happen to them.

As a result, Cheung wants to push beyond these tropes and have minorities better represented in the media.

During the Q&A section there were some good questions, but there was a bizarre first question from a Caucasian woman in front, wondering why there were so many Asians in the audience tonight and complaining that there isn't multiculturalism in Canada, and how we live in silos. 

Many of us were taken aback by what she said, so much so that an elderly second-generation Chinese-Canadian woman wanted to engage with her, but after the event was over, the Caucasian woman said she didn't want to talk to her and fled the room!

Meanwhile the Chinese-Canadian asked if the book was for her, as she had repressed her Chinese-ness for most of her life and only in the last 20 years has begun embracing her heritage. But Cheung believes she can still read the book...

A man in the audience asked Cheung and Chong about being "bananas", an outdated term to describe Canadian-born Chinese who are "yellow on the outside, white on the inside". I hadn't heard that term being used for so long and particularly now when people try so hard to be politically correct.

In any event it was a good discussion and has inspired me to read the book!