Interviewing Australian people
working in Australian enterprises

 

Interview: W. Chew Chan Economics may be his field of study but comics is what W. Chew Chan, known to friends as "Chewie", is all about. If this seems contradictory, think again - comics are actually an economic boon to popular culture and Chewie is at the cutting edge. Residing in Sydney's northern suburbs, Chewie was born in Malaysia in 1971. After his family moved to Australia, Chewie graduated with a Bachelor of Economics and Accounting from Sydney University. He now works in many jobs but all in the same field - comics and graphic novels. This includes producing storyboards for movies (Happy Feet, Superman Returns) and comics (Iron Man for Marvel Comics). He is also a comics consultant, delivering lectures and seminars about comics at industry conferences for schools and libraries.

In what ways does Japan attract you?
I love so much of Japan and its culture - both pop and traditional. I especially love how it cherishes its past while embracing the future. The atmosphere is so charged and vibrant - it makes you smile and seems to make enjoying life so effortless. And fun! In November 2007, I travelled around Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. One of the coolest things I got out of Japan was how it can be so reverent of its heritage and still be on the cutting edge of pop culture and technology. Everyone should, at least once in their lifetime, walk through Harajuku on a Sunday. It's fantastic!

You work at Kinokuniya bookstore. What do you do there?
As comics consultant, I advise Kinokuniya on all things about graphic novels (comics and manga). These include buying new titles, training staff, exploring markets, how to position the store within the local comics industry (customers, publishers, suppliers and distributors) - essentially anything to do with building the Kinokuniya brand name in Australia as regards graphic novels.

How did you come to work for Kinokuniya?
Shortly after the store opened, I was asked to manage their graphic novels section. I was in the unique position of having the business training, retail experience, and product knowledge as well as the artistic integrity and the professional network to explore just what a graphic novels section of a traditional bricks-and-mortar store is capable of achieving. Fortunately, the answer is a lot!

What do you like about the job?
I get to show off the comics medium in the best light. There's nothing better than when I convince people how great graphic novels can be. Graphic novels are one of the fastest-growing categories in the publishing world and serve as the basis for some of the most successful movies of the last decade. I also have the privilege of serving with the best retail staff I've ever seen - the secret to Kinokuniya's success.

What are the biggest challenges and rewards in your work?
It sounds cliched but the answer is the same. Encountering and then breaking down prejudices about getting graphic novels to be accepted by the mainstream is both a challenge and its own reward. Most of the time, people (customers, staff and management) don't realise the unconscious prejudices they carry about graphic novels. But it's equally thrilling when some of those people find that they do like the medium after all.

You have an Asian background working for a Japanese organisation in Sydney. Is this an advantage?
I think coming from a multicultural country has definitely helped me be more considerate of others' opinions and helped me see the reasoning behind those opinions. Everyone has different opinions and the way to resolve problems is to be able to see where the other person is coming from.

What are your future aspirations?
It would be nice if I could help spread the Kinokuniya brand throughout Australia. As an artist, the goal is always to be a better story-teller than I was the day before and to continue to tell stories that, hopefully, will touch someone out there.

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Interviewing Japanese people working in Australian enterprises

Interview:Yuko Narushima Yuko Narushima is a journalist working in Canberra for the Sydney Morning Herald. She was born to Japanese parents in Newcastle, NSW, in 1982. Her father worked as an engineer for Toshiba so the family moved with his job, to various locations, including Tokyo. By age three, Yuko was back in Australia, this time in Bathurst, where she completed her education. After school, she worked as a hotel receptionist in Sydney before returning to Bathurst to study journalism at Charles Sturt University. In her spare time she likes cooking for friends, painting and taking road trips.

As a second-generation Japanese, What was it like having Japanese parents and being brought up in rural Bathurst?
I felt quite conspicuous growing up in Bathurst - family portraits in kimonos did not help! I wasted time trying to be like other kids. I'd answer back in English when my parents spoke to me in Japanese and swore off sashimi for a time. I'm glad the culture penetrated my early attempts to block it out and that I have patient relatives who put up with my belated efforts to catch up now. I'm Japanese in funny ways; I cook spaghetti with chopsticks, for example, and only eat Kewpie mayonnaise and I like translating Japanese sayings directly into English. "Me ga kusaru" or "Your eyes will rot", is a favourite!

What was life like in Bathurst?
School in Bathurst was fun for the most part. I met some of the best friends I have there. But the late '90s was a pretty telling time. The views of Pauline Hanson had been aired and racial divides I'd not really considered became unavoidable. The dining hall was an obvious example. Asian and Anglo students would sit at different tables and though both groups would say the other was failing to mix, I began questioning the impact of race in the broader world.

Tell us about interesting episodes or difficult experiences you've had when visiting Japan.
I remember the look of bewilderment I got for thanking a marketing agent for free tissues on the street. I know they're advertising but I'm a chronic sniffler! Also, my cousin had to chase after me in a department store change-room because I'd forgotten to take off my shoes and had no idea what to do with a cloth bag I'd been issued. I was meant to slip it on over my head to keep the neckline of the jumper clean.

WTell us about your career path to date.
My first job in journalism was at Bloomberg News in Sydney. I worked there for a year before joining the Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet in 2007. That was a fun year, working across different parts of the paper - online, arts, news, liftouts and politics. I moved to Canberra at the end of the cadetship, where I'm now based at Parliament House.

Describe your current job for the Herald.
My main role is to cover federal politics in the areas of immigration, tourism, transport and education. Being in Canberra means I also go out on other jobs - arts stories at the National Gallery of Australia, for example, or one-off jobs out of town. Most recently I had to cover a triple-murder suicide near the Victorian border.

What do you like most about your job?
I like the variety. It's a profession where you continue learning on the job and can probe new topics. It's also a job where you are entrusted with a lot of responsibility; you owe your readers honest information and your interview subjects fair treatment. I'm lucky to be surrounded by great journalists who are generous with their time and wisdom.

What is it like living in Canberra as a young professional?
It's great. A good chunk of the population is from somewhere else so there's a real openness and warmth to the place. I maintain it has a seedy underbelly but that's an investigation for another day.