Ex-Whanganui writer Rose Lu to read work at Anthonie Tonnon's Opera House show

Author Rose Lu will return to the scene of her teenage escapades when she features in musician Anthonie Tonnon's "variety show" at the Royal Wanganui Opera House this month.

Lu's book All Who Live On Islands has received widespread acclaim since its release in 2019.

"I was hoping that someone would ask me to do a show in Whanganui, and here it is," Lu said.

Lu, who now lives in Wellington, moved to Whanganui from Auckland after she had began secondary school, and said her experiences as an adolescent in provincial New Zealand helped shape some of the essays that can be found in her book.

"I moved to Whanganui when I was 13 and my parents bought the dairy on Carlton Ave, and they ran it up until about two years ago.

"Before my family came to Whanganui we lived in Mt Roskill in Auckland, which has a big migrant community and is super diverse, so it was quite a shock to come here and only have one other Chinese person in my year at school.

"People would get us mixed up even though we looked nothing alike, so it was quite confronting."

Lu said she had a part-time job at a Victoria Ave butcher's shop while attending Whanganui High School, and would spend a lot of time "hooning up and down the Ave".

"My family lived here for 15 years and have quite a strong attachment to Whanganui, so a lot of the stories in my book are based there.

"There's still a lot of poverty and disparity, and even racism between different people in the community, and I write about how my family fitted into that landscape.

"It wasn't until I left Whanganui and went to Christchurch and then Wellington that I realised that not everyone's teenage years were like this, and that maybe there was more to things than driving up and down the Ave and drinking Do Bros [Double Browns]."

As well as essays on her family and formative years, All Those Live On Islands also contained pieces that focused on mental health issues, as well her trip to the Himalayas, Lu said.

"Mental health is still a subject that isn't talked about that openly, but there is even more stigma attached to it in the Chinese community.

"Being in the Himalayas was a completely different kind of culture shock, because everybody just seemed so unprepared.

"It was almost as if they'd only ever walked on paved ground which, growing up in New Zealand, is quite a weird thing to think about."

After Lu left Whanganui she studied engineering in Christchurch before going on to a career in software development, and she said it wasn't until later in life that she began to write about her experiences as a Chinese New Zealander.

"I went overseas for nine months and spent a lot of time in Asia and China and it sparked an interest in writing my own stories.

"There's nothing in New Zealand like what I've written, and there are hardly any Asian writers here, period.

"I realised that there was nothing stopping me creating something for other Chinese New Zealand people, because there's so many of us."

Lu said she was looking forward to speaking at her first "hometown show", and a lot of her friends from Wellington attend the concert.

Rose Lu will read at Anthonie Tonnon's Live At The Opera House show on Saturday, August 29.

Mike Tweed
Whanganui Chronicle 5/8/20