People will think your book is about childhood sexual abuse!’įortunately, I have excellent publishers who then designed a few more covers. My dad took one look and said, ‘Oh no, look at that poor miserable kid on the cover. When I saw one of the early proposed covers of Unpolished Gem – gloomy background with some morose looking little Asian girl in a dress sitting in a dark room – I was horrified! I’d written this funny book and suddenly to sell it, it would be presented as every other Orientalist trope. What expectations does the book cover raise about this story?ĭoes this comment from Alice Pung about the cover confirm or challenge your expectations about the story?

To what extent might your first impressions of the book be shaped by your own cultural context?.

What are your expectations of the book after reading the start to Part 1?.

Why has she chosen to use the present tense? 12).Ĭompare Pung’s attempt to recount a fish-out-of-water experience with your own. Now read the start of Part 1, from ‘Here they all are…’ (p. How does the change of tense affect the impact of the writing? Show both pieces to a partner to gauge different responses.

Experiment with writing about the experience in the present tense.

(NB: Presumably students will gravitate to using past tense.)

Write in the first person about your fish-out-of-water experiences, recording how you thought and felt at the time.Work in pairs to tell each other about a fish-out-of-water experience, describing what you thought and felt at the time (as opposed to what you think and feel now).starting a first part-time job, visiting an unfamiliar place, taking on a new sport or activity, being in an unusual social situation. Brainstorm situations when you felt like a fish out of water, e.g.Consider the idiomatic metaphor: ‘a fish out of water’.

Unpolished gem pung