STORIES OUT WEST
Stories Out West is a definitive anthology of works by emerging and established writers who use storytelling to share their experiences. Culture, class, language, ability, gender, sexuality and geography all play a part in shaping the many stories of multicultural LGBTQ+ people living in Western Sydney.
Stories Out West was developed by ACON in partnership with Sweatshop.
From stories about family, migration, love, and resilience, Stories Out West showcases the diversity of experience hidden within Western Sydney’s community of LGBTQ+ people from multicultural backgrounds.
In particular, raising awareness of First Nations and culturally and linguistically diverse LGBTQ+ issues and supporting LGBTQ+ community members in theme with IDAHOBIT, “Together Always: United in Diversity”.
DEAR BROTHER. Gatsby Lim Dec. 2022
Soursdey Bong,
You’d love Vietnam. We share the same abusive exes of countries that fucked up our lives. Plants reclaim French and American- style buildings alongside Chinese siheyuan temples indiscriminately. Burning meats on coals waft through the streets and outside shops on dirty plastic stools sit folks that look like our family. A metallic taste of rain is threatening to pour. Reminds me of Cambodia. Brother, I’m sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote. Yesterday, I boarded a ship called the “Orchid” to Halong Bay. I’m on holiday with my sweetheart Matthew. He’s a Blue Mountains man. In Khmer our nephews call him uncle with eyes the colour of the sea. I double clicked on Matthew ten years ago. We’re still pressing each other’s buttons. In the evenings we sit on a narrow balcony that pushes Matthew and I shoulder-to-shoulder. Limestone pillars jut out of jade waters and the skies are postcard blue. Looks Photoshopped. The guides explain that the people here prayed to the gods for protection from pirate raids and were gifted the islands. A dragon and her baby make their home here forming the archipelago that would protect future prosperity. At least for a while. Cát Bà has rare endemic orchids and the government have recently “relocated” the Cửa Vạn people here. Fisherfolk who lived clustering like barnacles to these seas for generations are now forced ashore. Orchids don’t need soil to live. If dragons can become flowers, maybe they can grow roots long enough to find their way back to the waters. Two families remain, given permission to live in their sea. The ancestors of the ocean dragons now furiously paddle lazy tourists out to the grottos for a few US dollars a round trip. Where villages once floated, luxury cruise lines set anchor now. Tenders brim-full ferry forwards and backwards tourists who will take home insta- perfect selfies with light green seas invisible of the Vietnamese whose lives are tethered to this place. We head past the last floating structure. A faded red plastic chair like the ones we used to sit on, feet nailed down. On the rusty tin a faded pink shirt flaps hello in the wind.
Do you remember the Red Cross refugee camp in Panatnikom? Hot pink polo shirt, no pants. Chasing screaming kids and blushing aid workers around the encampment. They nickname me “The Crab” because I run more sideways than forwards and backwards. Baa said I’d never keep my pants on. Late one night we leave home to visit sick relatives and never return. We didn’t let anyone know our real plans. No one can be trusted. Uncle Pol Pot made sure of that. Only enough food for a short trip. Rubies hidden in snotty tissues. Gold folded into soiled nappies. A full bag of rock sugar. Our parents carried us through jungles. I held my breath as people are shot dead. I closed my eyes as a woman threw herself down the mountainside with her baby. A mouthful of sugar to stop from crying. Cold muddy water as we sunk ourselves into the landscape. Gates opened, no papers were asked for. Our bleeding feet didn’t stop ‘til Thailand. If any part of our story had changed we might have become sea, dragon or orchid folks.
From one stolen land to another, Migrant Services Australia gave us a home in Campsie. We were thrown together like a united nations of the homeless into a run-down orange brick flat. Cambodian, Lao, Vietnamese and Lebanese families brought with them Buddhas, Kinh Dương Vương and the Prophet Muhammad – all beat into fibro walls. Remember when I spilt that cup of hot soy milk? The white liquid ran slowly off the pages of the newspaper we covered the table with, blurring the words none of us can read onto the floor. I sobbed. Something sharp stabbed into my dry stomach. Dad said nothing. His eyes glazed. Mum cleaned up. We ate in silence. For a moment we remembered an old hunger. Liverpool in the 90's “Chink”, “poofter” and “faggot” became my second names. Inside our old new fibro house I’m the model child. Becoming Ozzie is footy matches, BBQs and Ramsey Street. I get a centre- parted bowl haircut and bleach it blonde. I want to look like Zac from “Saved By The Bell.”
You were still and quiet like a good baby. Mum snatched you from dad. Howling she pressed your tiny, hot wet body into herself. You weren’t breathing. Looking into Baa’s dark, gaunt face she sobbed even louder. Can you hate your own malnourished body? Starvation, guns and the silence stood outside. A teenage woman and man in a concentration camp in Battambang hold tight onto their dead baby. I like to think as their screams escaped the small wooden room, they were allowed to give birth in, the soldiers outside put down their guns. I like to think that their grief made a small village motionless for a few seconds. But a stillbirth stops nothing. Something is moving inside her. Confused, the midwife checked her limp stomach. A kick. A tiny thing insisting on life amongst all the death. It’s me. Like a good big brother you gave me your portion to eat. Did you give your breath? Baa told me about our birth only a few years ago. He made me promise to never ask mum about you. Brother, in my face they see you. In their disappointment of me, do they wonder how you would have turned out? Sometimes I’ve wished we could have traded places. It took time but I can now meet your eyes. Our family is safe and thriving. Mum and dad own their house outright. I’m loved by a handful of handsome men, not all of them blue-eyed but brown-eyed like me. A schnauzer follows us around my plant-filled city apartment. On weekends I take blood and chosen family to stay at my small cottage in the Blue Mountains. How do I live a life worthy of that breath you gave me?
I don’t know. I’m trying to live enough for two.
I love you brother. I love me.
Always,
Gatsby
HAPPY COMING OUT DAY!
Analog photograph of twink Sam circa 2000.
Happy National Coming Out Day!
Sam Gatsby Lim. Sydney, Australia. 10 October 2022
Some may argue that my coming out wasn't entirely necessary (See Picture above)
I was seventeen and barely an idea of man. Bambi legged, I was still figuring out who I was and experimenting with hair colour was a big part of that. I just finished my H.S.C. and was waiting for the results. Relieved to be finished but anxious, I kept myself busy working and volunteering at the Cabramatta community centre. An aspiring artist and activist, the community was a big part of my identity. I had a love-hate relationship with the all -seeing village and surveillance aunties who seemed to be outside every doorstep and knew everything. While it felt claustrophobic, it was also all I knew. The world outside those suburbs was mostly unwelcoming to people who looked like me so those hand full of suburbs the world called Western Sydney was home.
A current affairs program “60 Minutes” got in touch about a story they wanted to make about young people. It’d be an optimistic piece about the future of Australian youth. Where are you from, what are you doing now and where do you want to go? I jumped at the opportunity. It was a chance to represent my community and be on TV. The interview went well. I talked about growing up in the western suburbs and how that diversity shaped me to make meaningful change in the world. Being different was my super power. I spoke well. The interview ended and she thanked me for my time. We talked a little afterwards about other things. Over the next week I tell anyone who’ll listen I'm going to be on TV being interviewed about my studies. A few weeks later the show came out and they led with my smiling face and the words coming out of my mouth “ Yes I’m gay” The rest of the interview is a blur. I don’t know how much of my story was told. Those three words muted everything that came after. I stayed with friends in the city, too much of a coward to go home. Suddenly I was out. Everyone knows I'm gay.
When I did return to Cabramatta it wasn't the hero’s welcome I expected when I shot my mouth off about being on TV. In the streets I was met with a mix of disappointment, shame and rejection. The suburb I once rode the train home to, I was now an unwelcome guest. I stood outside my parent’s grocery store looking in. Mum was in her usual plaid shirt and capri pants behind the counter serving customers at the check out while dad was in the aisles restocking the shelves. He pushed up the glasses that were always falling down his face. They looked like they always did. Busy. For a brief moment I went back in time. To a time before I came out on TV. A time they would proudly tell people I'm their son.
I sauntered in as casually I could. My hands were shaking inside my pockets. I said hi to mum and she nodded as she was busy with customers. I find Dad in the canned food aisles working away. I can hear the price label gun clacks away before I see him. I pick up the cans and silently helped dad stack the shelves. We don't talk. I can't meet his eyes.
The shame, recriminations and anger I thought I’d have to deal with never came. Instead there was a silence that was almost worse. There would be a black hole between us after that, swallowing thoughts, words and feeling. Things we want to say might never be able cross that void ever again. I knew that they knew. The whole suburb was talking about it. People I didn't even know were now describing me as the “gay guy on 60 mins”. It was clear that they didn't want to talk about it. For years we lived in that limbo of things we can't and won’t say. My friends gave me the advice that they needed their own time to come to terms with it. So I spent years omitting joy, success, heartbreak and love from our talks.
They took their sweet time, but they have mostly come to terms with who I am. While we now holiday with my partners and spend christmases and birthdays together they still hold onto their own ideas and values. A few years ago they voted against marriage equality. Our relationship is fragile. For now I’m choosing to be optimistic. Speaking in half truth may perhaps mean that we can only share half love. Not being able to let them know about my struggles, joy and relationships sometimes weighs on me, but I’m lucky enough to have friends who are better than blood relatives.
Sam Gatsby Lim. Sydney, Australia. 10 October 2022
SEND NUDES
A Letter to friends. Sam Gatsby Lim. March 28, 2020
Sooo... We're in the middle of a pandemic. Some of us are lucky enough to be safe at home surfing the net to alleviate our boredom. What better time to get to know each other a little than locked up in our homes hoping this isn't the beginning of the end? Just kidding. Kind of...
A month ago I turned forty and was fortunate enough to be celebrating my big four-oh! working on a big gay cruise ship with almost a thousand gay men from all over the world and colleagues I've come to think of over the years as friends and family. At forty, It's only now that I'm finally starting to feel more comfortable in my own skin. From the outside looking in it may seem as though I’m comfortable with myself. The thirsty selfies of yesteryears can’t be undone. I’m sorry not sorry about that. Like many gay men, I outwardly present a physically confident self to my imaginary followers. The truth of how I feel about myself, like most of us, is far more complicated than that. I too have negative self image stuff I'm working through and an entirely inconsistent way of showing it. I was a working fashion model, actor and contemporary dancer in my twenties. Despite this, or perhaps because of that, I've a whole smorgasbord of self doubt and validation seeking behaviours wrapped up in a neat bow of sexual racism.
For many reasons I haven't always felt as though my body was my own. Not unlike the times we find ourselves in now, I was born into a period of strife. I was born towards the tail end of the Cambodian genocide. Malnourished, exhausted and traumatised, my teenage parents brought me into the world. It was not a quiet entrance- I've always had a flare for the dramatic. Frail and skeletal from being worked to death in the killing fields mum lost my brother stillborn minutes before giving birth to me. That might be why I've always been her favourite. There's a lot to unpack there, but that's a story for another time. Growing up Cambodian Chinese in Western Sydney was no walk in the park. At home emotional blackmail, guilt and silence is the chosen love language. The outside world is casual racism and hate crimes. Without language skills and not much family my folks managed to get work at a sweat shop sewing garments. I’d fall asleep under the buzzing of sewing machines to be close to mum and dad. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a pity party. It wasn't all doom and gloom. My childhood memories are full of wonder in other ways. Like many Aussies I grew up with fishing adventures and learned how to find clams in the sand with my toes in the spring and woke up to the excitement of finding out mum and dad had been to the Cronulla rock walls to catch crabs with their hands in the low tide. It meant a delicious feast of crabs that night. My mouth still waters thinking about those times. Children are resilient. How we're raised becomes normal to us. Now that I’m older I understand that it was their way of putting food on the table in the only ways they knew how. From my parents I learned how to forage and find food in this strange land we found ourselves. From them I learned the reality that life is fleeting and life is a hustle. As the eldest I carried the weight of stories beyond my years. Memories of running for our lives towards the Thai border still fresh. While I'm thankful for the work ethic, iron willed determination and resilience I was taught, I also learned to deny my feelings, hide my emotions and to be ashamed of my body. I don't think I'm alone in learning these things. The slight difference is that standing out was really frowned on. It was never spoken out loud, but standing out meant mortal danger... The oldest kid, I put pressure on myself to over-perform. I had to be the smartest in the room so that mum and dad would never starve ever again. I had to be the best at everything because of all they had been through for me to have the opportunities I enjoyed. That’s how I thought then. It's not like I was the perfect child. Far from it. Like all kids I had a rebellious streak. I was trying to figure out who I was. And who I wanted to be was a disappointment. Struggling with my sexuality and hormonal, lets face it I was an emotional train-wreck in my teens. It can't have been easy for them. I was moody, clever but without an understanding of how I could be who I wanted to be. I had a real fear of losing everything. I felt like I had to live my life for my family, not for me. This was suffocating... I know I certainly lashed out in many different ways because of that.
At eighteen I got my way out. While I was working as an actor and dancer (Who was I kidding?) on the backlot of the newly renovated fox studios I was spotted by a scout for a modelling agency. Surprised that anyone would want to take pictures of me for anything, let alone for money, I went to visit their office and was surprised to find myself represented after a meeting and a few polaroids were snapped. A few days later I was sent on my first casting. To my utter disbelief I found myself booked for a Nokia mobile phone campaign which paid more money for five hours than my parents would made in half a year. It felt like magic. A mediocre modelling career opened many doors for me and took me all over the world, allowing me to travel and then move to London where I would train as a contemporary dancer at the London Contemporary Dance School. Now it felt like I had found my place. London opened up to me. I felt like I belonged there. I was a good dancer. I made work that I was proud of. Unlike modelling which was a largely superficial scene where as an Asian man I was made to feel like the least desirable of the beautiful people, contemporary dance was wonderfully culturally diverse. I made friendships I have to this very day. I spent my weeks, months and years exploring the nature of life, love and relationships through movement. This period of being physically embodied was medicine for my soul. This is where I was meant to be. In dance I started to reclaim my body as my own. Training to move gave voice to so much empowerment, so much joy. Dancing gave me courage to be me. It taught me that my individuality was valuable and something worth protecting. Contemporary dance is where I first started the work of shedding the layers of self doubt and stepped into a celebration of who I was. I started to step into owning my body. It was the first time I truly understood that this is the only body I have in which to experience the world. I celebrated my body for me... And understood that my body is mine. Beautiful just as I was. All bodies are beautiful! Not in the context of euro-centric fashion ideals, not in the context of sexual desirability on apps, not as an extension of my family. My body is for me. While that may sound so trite and simple, it really was for me a revelation. I had spent most of my life for other people. First I lived for my family, then I changed it to conform to euro-centric aesthetics, even dying my hair ash blonde for years because the work kept coming. It was only then in dance that my body belonged to me.
A lots happened between now and then and time has changed how I look, feel about myself and now have injuries that prevent me for exercising like I used to. Despite being in the worst physical shape of my life, I am now in a hand full of gorgeous, loving relationships. Surrounded by sound friendships and appreciated for who I am. I'm still not immune to negative body image. The struggle is daily. So here I am at forty sending you this nude and sharing my story.
If we can't overshare now among friends, when can we? Some of you who will read this have known me for more than twenty years and most likely don't know any of this about me. Just so you know, many of you have been an important part of this journey. Thank you for looking after me. It's not like i've been withholding these stories to make a film about my life. Though maybe perhaps I should have? The last few weeks of anxiety, uncertainty and fear have reminded me of the power of sharing our stories. It can help us feel not so alone, though physically we may have to be for now. Despite my outwardly chatty personality I'm actually a secret introvert who has kept the most personal things about myself quite close to a hand full of friendships that I felt could bear the weight of these stories. It feels like that should change. I don't want to be that guy any more. Not right now, and not ever again. I want to be the guy who has meaningful chats. I want to have whole hearted interactions. I want us to really know each other. I hope that by sharing these stories we can do the work together of peeling off our layers towards more meaningful connection. While I write this there's a little lump in my throat. It's a little scary allowing myself to be seen in this way. I was raised to only show the best parts of myself and hide any vulnerability. I'm glad to say that in that department I've made great strides over the years with the help of lovers, friends, family and therapists. Allowing myself to be seen has also led to some of the most beautiful moments of my life so far. It's also rewarded me with the many friendships I'm lucky to have. I invite you to allow yourself to be really seen.
With great love and much hardship we are brought into the world by our mothers and fathers. Naked as children we play free from shame, the judgement of others and preconceived notions of what we are "meant to look like". Does this have to be the last time our bodies were our own?
When we "grow up" we are meant to hide our bodies. To show or take joy in our form is shameful, slutty and asking for objectification. I challenge that bullshit- we don't have to accept that. I chose to lean into the discomfort of negative self talk and push through the conservative upbringing I had to be naked in the sun, my body warm, alive and unashamed. This is the only body I have with which to experience the world. This body is my own and I celebrate it.
Please send Nudes, but to yourself.
XX
Coming to terms with my kinky self hasn’t been a walk in the park. It’s been an unnecessarily long, bumpy and at times treacherous hike up an unforgiving mountain. There are days I feel like I'm still at the base camp. I’m not playing the blame game, but being the eldest son of a traditional Cambodian Chinese family definitely hasn’t helped. I clung onto shame like a life raft. Anyone Asian reading this will most likely be nodding uncomfortably at this point in recognition. Emotional blackmail and shame was our preferred love language. I was taught that difference, poverty and queerness were things to be ashamed of and endured. So I hid my sexuality and kink like my life depended on it. Then I believed that would be the only way I’d ever be accepted.
When I think back to that love starved kid so many years ago, It breaks my heart to think that young folks today are more than likely still walking the same tightrope of shame. I’d like to go back in time to give that kid a big hug. I’d let know him that everyone deserves to be loved just as they are. No catches.
Loveable with all their kinks, bends and bumps.
I’d longed for and searched for someone who looked like me who was unapologetically kinky. I never found that role model. A unicorn-like, empowered Asian man who could talk about sex, ethical non monogamy while effortlessly living a whole hearted, full life. While I’m far from perfect and certainly not unicorn sparkly, I’m pushing myself to be more visible as a happy, thruppled and kinky AF gay Asian man! Visibility matters. While I don’t see myself as some aspirational influencer, I can be a voice for kindness, kink and a queer experience.
Some of you reading this have known me for years and had no idea I am in poly relationships, kinky and queer identified.
To me, my life isn’t so very different from others. I just have a few more people loving me is all. I have a primary partner of ten years I love with all my heart. We live in a tiny apartment with our two dogs and I wouldn’t have it any other way. In that way we may look just like many other couples. We laugh a lot together, argue sometimes and have supported each other through thick and thin. While we have lots of shared interests and family time we also have quality time apart. It’s because and not in spite of this space that we can surprise, excite and celebrate one another. Additionally I have a hand full of lovers I’ve been seeing regularly. Some of us have loved each other for more than fifteen years. Im thankful that there’s so much love in my life. Because of all of these relationships I’m thriving. I’m kinda high maintenance in case you hadn’t guessed.
With professional help over the years, I’ve learned so much about myself and understand that my comparatively high desire for so much physical touch may be because of the very quiet upbringing I had. In the home I grew up in we didn’t verbally express love, we didn’t sing, dance and unfortunately we didn’t hug each other. This isn’t uncommon for many South East Asian families.
There are reasons for that, but that’s another story. My young parents barely escaped Pol Pot’s genocide and have their own traumas to heal. They did the best they knew how and made sure we had everything we needed, often sacrificing and not prioritising themselves. Thankfully, over the years they have softened and we now hug farewell, say I love you all the time and they are learning to express love, affection and kindness. It’s been WORK. Lol. But worth it.
For me kink is like meditation, music or dance. It’s a somatic practice that takes me both away from and also into myself. It frees me of the self imposed ideas of who and how I am supposed to be, while tapping into powerful parts of my being that given voice in the safe container of kink exploration thrive and can be born into existence.
In the way a meditator, musician or dancer may practice their craft to find expression, creativity and to touch the ineffable- I practice kink.
Behind closed doors (sometime outdoors lol) I make time to practice intimacy, sex and connection. I hone these skills to become more sensitive to myself and my partner’s verbal and non verbal communications. Exploring, playing with my partner/s I plan, strategise and practice how to be present for myself and others. When I can be in the moment we can surprise, delight and terrify one another. For me this liminal space of discovery lives vulnerability, connection and freedom. At it’s most powerful we have danced in a flow state, allowing one another to be the things we sometimes fear to speak out loud. To be a slut, or villain, to ask for unspeakable things and to have those needs met…
It’s a performance for each other. From the outside looking in it may be a strange, terrifying and sometimes comic scene. However looking from outside gives nothing of the trust, fear, doubt, letting go of heartbreak and emotional journey travelled to lean into vulnerability. As Antoine de Saint Exupery wrote in Le Petit Prince “ It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye”. To breathe life into unspoken desires those moments feel oftentimes more real that everyday life.
In this way, Kink is my artform. As profound as a meditation atop the Himalayas, as moving as a piece of beautiful music and as touching as a sitting in the front row of a Pina Bausch performance.
I invite you to make your chosen intimacy your art practice. A dedication and deepening practice into the indescribable joy that is connection.
Gatsby Lim
Photography: Skiinmode, Bangkok 2022