In her 2006 memoir, Unpolished Gem, Alice Pung documents growing up in suburban Melbourne as the daughter of Chinese-Cambodian refugees. Her upcoming book continues the themes of transformation and identity.

Please tell us about your forthcoming book.

I am writing a book about a father and a daughter who try to understand each other. Both my parents are Chinese, born in Cambodia. My father survived Pol Pot’s Killing Fields during a time where many Chinese were purged. The most significant years of his young adult life were spent as a slave labourer. It often amazes me how ordinary he seems, and how resourceful and funny. I have realised that these were the qualities that probably got him through alive. I’ve also noticed that as he has become older, he has sequestered himself from the outside world in order to stay safe. So this is a book about how two different generations grow old and come to understand life, love, and what it means to have a family.

Are limits to how much one person can understand another?

In reality, we never see people as they really are. We see them as we are. Yet we often assume that we know another person, and if we are really close to them, we believe we understand them entirely because we love them. We think we can anticipate their common and habitual responses to situations. That kind of love - no matter how well-intentioned - is an oppressive one, premised on being able to predict another person's responses and never allowing them a chance to prove you wrong. That is why there is often conflict between migrant parents who are overbearing to their children ("it is a dangerous world out there and we understand you are weak and sheltered") and between partners who declare "typical of you" in conflict situations. It does not allow for change. And it is this very concept - the idea that people change, and that they are not shaped by their past circumstances - that is the heartbeat of my next book.

To many in China, Chinese who have gone overseas will still always be considered Chinese. What do you think about that?

In 2008, I completed an artistic residency at Peking University in Beijing. I was touched and gladdened that the Chinese accepted me as being Chinese, despite the fact that I was born in Australia, and both my parents were born in Cambodia. Both sets of my grandparents are Teochew, from Chaozhou in Guangzhou.

When I was in China in 2008 I took a trip to my grandmother’s birth town, in Jie Yang. All of a sudden as I stepped off the bus, I could understand all of the people speaking in the Teochew dialect. It was a strange experience – they felt so foreign and yet so familiar.

What part of you is Chinese, Cambodia, Australian... how does each of those parts feel about the others? How does it differ from what your mother would say? What about your children?

These countries only signify our external circumstances, not our identities, because in the last century so much has happened throughout history to shake up our former fixed sense of self.

Our experiences with other people make us acutely aware of what we share in common as human beings. I would like my future children to see themselves as human beings first and to see other people the same way. I don’t have any idea what cultural heritage or colour they will be (I don’t yet have a partner). I think that if we all had fixed ideas about ethnicity then the world would be a less interesting place.

How has living in China affected you?

I used to sit on a bench in the park in the Temple of Heaven, and watch the elderly people do Tai Chi on a Saturday morning. I loved the fact that in many parks in Beijing, there was exercise equipment for elderly people. I saw elderly people dancing together in the Hou Hai district in the evenings, in the public square. There seemed to be such a respect for growing old in some parts of China, which is very different from modern culture, where growing old is considered something to avoid. These elderly people seemed to live at a different pace of life, which was beautiful to watch.

By Jean Yung

Catch Alice Pung at the Crystal Room on Sunday, March 14, at noon. RMB65 includes a drink