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Canberra Today 11°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

The art of seeing right, from Wong

Sam Wong has just finished a consultation session with a group of elderly residents when I first meet him.

“These people need help; they need a voice,” Sam says and greets me with a big handshake. Sam is chair of the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum.

“They arrive in Australia for a family reunion, but they have no support for the first five years. They can’t leave the country for two years either, and they can’t even go home and fix their teeth!”

Sam speaks very fast, as if he has so much to tell me but doesn’t quite know how to start.

Ushered to his office, I can overhear people lingering in the function room. They do have their own voices, in Mandarin, Cantonese, or even Shanghainese, but they don’t have a voice that will be heard.

That’s where Sam steps in. He believes that the Federal Government should have an ongoing tracking system on migrant well being from when they arrive.

“What we are asking is that the Government should not just take the money and give the visa,” says Sam. “The Government has the obligation to care if these people are suffering.”

Newly-retired as a pharmacist from the Australian Government, Sam finds it almost impossible to pick up his long-abandoned hobby: fishing.

In fact, as  chair of the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum, he has a career he never wants to retire from.
Sam confesses he loves to help those community groups with diverse ethnic backgrounds, or minority groups, which he believes are

“important constituents of the Australian society”.

“Australia is doing quite well now as a multicultural society, but certainly there is room to improve,” says Sam. “If I don’t speak, things won’t change.”

He has been speaking up for the minorities since the early 1970s, when he first arrived in Melbourne as an international student. Born in Hong Kong and brought up under the British colonial rule, Sam inherited a keen interest in social justice from his father, an active community leader in Kow Loon.

“In the ‘60s I took part in the student movement in Hong Kong, but most of the time I found I didn’t fit in there – I am not that interested in making money, which is rare in Hong Kong!”

Fortunately, he did “fit in” to Australia.

The early ‘70s was by no means a golden age for Asian migrants though, with the “White Australia” policy still lingering and the widespread grassroots prejudice against Asians. However, Sam saw the possibility of making changes and the potential for Australia to be a multicultural society.

Starting from Melbourne, he has been actively involved in multicultural affairs that are far beyond the Lion Dance or dragon boats; it’s more about empowering the minority communities with an articulate voice.

He facilitates assistance programs for new immigrants, organises inter-faith forums to promote understanding across different religions, and even encourages the registration and recognition of Chinese medicine practitioners.

Being an ethnic Chinese, Sam Wong’s vision goes beyond the Chinese community.

He has just won the 2011 Australian Bluestar Award from the ACT’s Muslim community for his intercultural work, adding to a long list of awards including the most prominent, his Member of the Order of Australia medal.

“I have been very supportive of them (Muslims),” says Sam. “They’ve been misunderstood after 9/11 and profiled in a very negative way.

To me it is most unfair. Members of the Muslim community have made long and outstanding contributions to the society.”

With all those awards, Sam has a much longer list of things to do. He wishes to promote multiculturalism as part of the school curriculum, to further the inter-faith dialogue in Canberra, to seek the Australian Government’s recognition of the earliest Chinese migrants’ contribution and much more.

“I know there are people who don’t like me, but I don’t care. I can even work with them,” says Sam.

“Actually, I can work with anybody as long as they promote harmony and social justice in our society.”

And he does. He travels regularly back to China and Hong Kong, where he left 40 years ago, and talks to local officials about issues such as food safety and export quality.

Despite the difficulty, he believes in the power of dialogue.

“Talk to me, instead of tolerating me. Tolerance is a terrible word; if you find something you don’t like about me, mention that to me,” he says.

In terms of multiculturalism, Sam ranks Canberra as the best in Australia with ongoing support from the local government.

He is proud to have a very “multicultural” family as well, with his Anglican wife and daughter and him a Buddhist.

“My wife and my daughter are very independent and capable women, not easy to manage,” says Sam with a big laugh. “I am always the minority at home; even the cat is female!”

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

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