Kylie Chan

I do get a lot of fanmail, although the constant stream of 'When's the Next One Coming Out' has slowed to a trickle with the introduction of the FAQ page (this doesn't stop the occasional plaintive request for me to make a movie coming through my inbox).  Sometimes, however, I get mail that really makes my day; like the one from Toowoomba where she said that she'd never been into reading until she tried my books, and now her English grades are much improved.

I'm going to try to get a signing date in Toowoomba now.  It's things like that that make this whole writer gig worthwhile.  

A reader has two big advantages in life over someone who never picks up a book.  They've been introduced to ideas, situations, places and people that are greater than any tiny back yard.  'Broadening the mind' isn't just a cliche - your horizons are extended and you share the author's experience of more than just your own cultural values.  Maybe they'll be inspired and go out into the world to see more - you can always spot someone who's been out in the world, they have a maturity and depth of experience that gives them confidence that you can never gain just by sitting at home.

Readers also gain skills in language just from being immersed in good English.  Seeing a lot of well-structured, correctly spelled grammatically flawless prose tends to influence you - to produce A's in your own English.

If I'm influencing just one young person to read and expand their horizons, then everything I've done has been worthwhile.

I really enjoyed the A-Team when I was small.  We'd sit in front of the telly, all the family together. and watch these cheesy series with grins on our faces, occasionally cheering the good guys on.

Many years later, I watch the movie and cringe.  They've become a cliche now, and not in a good way.  I love mindless fun and pretty explosions, but start throwing tired cliches at me instead of creativity and watch me hunker down in my seat and groan.

The thing that was most obvious to me was the homogeneity of the characters.  They're all big, trash-talking white guys.  It was like a Duke Nukem convention.  Oh yeah, there's the token Big Hard-Hitting Black Guy, the token Ass-Kicking Hottie (who disappointingly for me didn't kick much ass at all, she spent most of her time - guess what - talking trash), and working for her there was the token Asian, but it seemed to me that every other character was an interchangable Trash-Talking White Guy.

I honestly got mixed up on who was who because of all the fair-skinned blue-eyed good-looking action heroes.  Even Liam Neeson, who was so sleek and deadly in other films, was talking trash in a thick cloud of foul-smelling smoke.  (God I hate cigars, but that's another story.  I really did cringe.)

Sure, there were pretty explosions, and big full on OMG WOW scenes, but the characters were so meh that I was kinda left cold.

And some of the cliches were painful.  All Mexicans are corrupt, murdering criminals.  Are these the new Generic Bad Guys? Ugh.

Want to identify the bad guy in six seconds?  Have him say something patronisingly sexist to a female.  Extra points if she's hot.  Double points if she flips him the bird back.  Triple word score if the guys in the audience are cheering, 'Damn he's a bad guy! That badass dude just told HER!'

The worst thing for me was that the Big Revelation, made by Mr 'I'm a Pacifist Now', was that It's Okay to Kill People.  Really, Killing People is Good.  Go out there, and follow Gandhi's teachings, because what he was really teaching was... Killing People is Okay. If you don't want to kill people, then that's a serious personality flaw and you need to get over yourself.

So, yeah.  Admittedly I'm not the target demographic (which is obviously trash-talking white guys) but meh.

I had to smile coming out though.  How times have changed.  A tiny little boy said to his father: 'That leader guy, even though he smoked, he was pretty cool.'

My daughter had to do a project on a modern artist, and in the spirit of all things chaotic I suggested she do a project on Banksy .  I wasn't expecting her teacher to approve a project on a graffiti artist but to her credit, the teacher said it was fine.

For those of you who don't know, Banksy is a highly secretive vigilante street artist who produces intelligent and thought-provoking work. He has a lot to say about the state of the modern world - but he's also a graffiti artist, works underground at night, and has only recently become more mainstream - which is a contradiction since he's firmly against anything mainstream anyway.

I think he'd probably be horrified to learn that he's a valid subject for a year ten art assignment.

So when the Banksy movie 'Exit Through the Gift Shop ' was showing in the City, Missy made me take her to see it.  It's subtitled 'A Street Art Disaster Movie', which is actually a very apt name for it.

This movie starts off as a documentary about street art, and what's involved, and some of the people - and then it takes a very interesting direction and becomes a real-life comedy.  No television writer anywhere could come up with this level of ironic, surreal hilarity.   My brain still hurts from the layers of irony. 

Some of the comments from the art fans really made me want to bang my head on something.

Five stars, I cannot recommend this film enough.  Take yourself to see it and learn something about the human condition by watching a lovely man's charming home movies of people sneaking around at night with paint cans and doing art shows in broad daylight for adoring fans.

And I really know what I've been doing wrong now.  

I'm often asked for the recipes for some of the home-cooked Chinese dishes I make - my son even asked me for one recently.  I must post some.

I found a recipe for one of my daughter's favourite dishes - slow-cooked beef.  The beef is cooked with cinnamon (really), cloves, ginger, garlic, peppercorns, teochew (yay Chiu Chow!) bean paste, soy sauce, and a small piece of dried tangerine peel.

I found everything I needed in the Chinese grocery in Chinatown, except for the tangerine peel.  They have dried EVERYTHING except for this.  I was confused - this is such a normal part of everyday dishes.

Then I remembered back in Hong Kong, seeing mandarin/tangerine peels all over the place, left out to dry in the sun (sometimes next to the road).  Everybody makes them at home.

I feel like a real Chinese Mum, now, with the broken peel of a mandarin sitting on a paper towel in the yard drying for my cooking. 

The stewed beef is in the crock pot now and the fragrance filling the house is something I wish I could share.  Something hot and tasty for a winter evening!

Oh, and the now reading - I had a list of books that were recommended to me - one of them was the Dresden Files.  Missy saw the list, went into her room, and pulled out the first volume - she'd had it for a while.  She's ahead of me!

And I was having such fun telling people they'd be able to buy the books in the UK and the US!  Ah well, a door closes, a window opens. 

I've been told that I will be published in the UK, just later.

US; well.  We'll see.

Now I have to go through the site and remove the Angry Robot covers and ISBNs, and the books from the FAQ section. 

Back to work!