Pauline Hansen Is Science Fiction by Ian Woolf

Ego blogging again! I put my name into Feedster to check how my RSS feed looks from the other side. Honest. One of the feeds
that came up was a Search Poem by Ivy Alvarez called Pauline Hansen

In May 1997, the Sydney Futurian Science Fiction Society met, and
as a tiny part of the meeting we discussed One Nation party “leader”
Pauline Hansen’s book. I wrote up the meeting,
Ivy’s search engine found it, and thus I had the honour of being included in her poem.

The meeting included discusssions of stories in which the themes of
“Orientals in science fiction”, “Confucian societies in science fiction”,
“North America invaded by the Yellow Hoardes”, and “Australia invaded
by the Yellow Peril” were explored.

Pauline Hanson is Science Fiction

by Ian Woolf

Ms “Fingers” Smith opened the locked room of the May 1997 meeting after a
lightning lock picking lesson from one of our members, and a little
practice on the room next door. Fingers now seeks tools of her own.

Brian Walls opened the May 1997 meeting with news that the “One Nation”
party’s The Truth by Pauline Hanson and ghostwriter has tracts about
lesbian asiatic cyborgs, and therefore qualifies as science fiction. Brian
further informed us that Disneyland has been invaded by Vietnamese
dwarves.

Graham Stone proceeded to tell us to “shut up!”, and then inform us that
Sam Moskowitz had died. Graham handed around an article that listed Sam
Moskowitz’s achievements in introducing the first ever university course
in science fiction, and his many books about the subject.

Peter Eisler announced that the Sydney Hoyts 8th Anniversary of audience
participation Rocky Horror Picture Show, Special Edition would be
performed the following Friday, all in one breath. Someone complained that
Sydney would undergo an invasion of Goths due to the RHPS scene. This
conjured, in the fevered imagination of Garry Dalrymple, an Invasion of
Goughs, all shouting Gough Whitlam’s immortal “maintain the rage!”. Garry
greets Men In Black with the query “Are you a Goth, or are you colour
blind?”

Susan showed us the new UFO magazine, which reported on the types of
aliens observed all over the world. Apparently Australians get US style
extraterrestrials, miss out on the European-style aliens, and are missing
our own distinctive style of aliens.

Garry reported that there had been a protest against a line of dolls of
Nuns by feminists. Garry then gave us instructions on how to view the
comet Hale-Bopp from Sydney. Find the three stars in a line of Orion’s
belt, then look up to the red star Betelgeuse, then look straight down and
north at around 5:15am to 6:20am close to the horizon. Naturally, in
Sydney itself, you are unlikely to see the horizon due to buildings and
trees. Thus you may have to travel a little, or just watch the view on TV
from the northern hemisphere, which is far more spectacular. Garry then
recommended a trip to the Sydney Central Railway Bar for a surreal Star
Wars kind of experience, due to the extremely strange types who pass
through the place.

Garry also reported that SCOT, the Secret Council Of Timelords, had indeed
aborbed all the other Doctor Who clubs as had been prophesized in previous
Futurian meetings.

Brian reported that author Jack Dann was the first Australian to win a
Nebula award, and that Jack Dann would be speaking at the Leonardo Da
Vinci exhibition at UTS on 28th May (missed it). The Esoteric Bookshop
will be opening a Science Fiction section, to help bring its customers
back down to Earth. Brian handed around a page for us to write the names
of suggested authors we would like to buy titles from if the bookshop
carried them. All members were more than happy to influence the buying
decisions of the Esoteric Bookshop, and a fine list of authors was
presented to Brian by the end of the meeting. Brian further informed us
that the movie The Fifth Element was heavily inspired by the comic strip artist Moebius
The Australian science magazine 21C has an article on author John
Shirley. Brian also announced that Martin Caiden had died.

Inscrutable!

The topic of Orientals in science fiction was started by mention of “The
Radiation of the Chinese vegetable” by C Stirling and Gleeson. In this
story, the villain is called Yetunhung, and the heroine is Wunlook.

The original TV series of Star Trek was very advanced for its day in
having non-caucasian bridge crew, including the asian Mr Sulu.

Godzilla , about the destruction of Tokyo by a giant fire-breathing
lizard, has been made in Japanese, Korean, and soon an American film
version. There were dozens of spinoffs with Tokyo being destroyed by
several different monsters, from Space Turtles, to the giant carnivorous
plant Biolante.

The film The Bride and the Beast by Ed Wood featured a newspaper
headline “110 000 Chinese living in trees.”

2061 by Arthur C. Clarke describes how the Chinese land on Europa where
a tree eats them.

Black Steel by Steve Perry, describes martial arts, asian swordplay,
asian master craftsman and spriritual warriors in a galactic civilisation.

Neuromancer by William Gibson shows a future world dominated by the
Japanese corporate structure.

Tiger Tiger by Alfred Bester features a scene in which the Chinese
detective exchanges information about his Family House with a Chinese
executive and they discover that they are traditional enemies, and enjoy a
friendly exhange of ritual insults.

Confucius Rules, Ok?

Chung Kao: The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove describes a future society based on
Confucian social rules.

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, a fantasy set in 7th century Confucian
China, about a peasant seeking a cure for a strange illness in his village
who enlists the help of Master Li Kao, a self-described scholar with a
slight flaw in his character.

In Diamond Age : Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson,
much of the action takes place in a future Confucian Chinese state,
who kidnap a nanotechnology designer and press him into work for
ten years as punishment for a crime committed in another nation.

North America invaded!

In Buck Rogers, the Han Chinese take over all of North America. Graham
informed us that in Flash Gordon , the planet Mongo is inhabited by
Mongolians with asian features who turned pink.

Robert Heinlein’s Sixth Column also known as “The Day After Tomorrow” is
about a future where the Han Chinese invade North America, and some
scientists with some breakthrough technology start a fake religion to
resist the asian opressors, complete with fake halos. They eventually
invent a ray gun that only kills non-caucasians, and a gallant black
American and American Chinese give their lives for freedom.

Patrick Tilley’s Amtrack Wars portray a post holocaust North America
colonized by Japan.

The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick is about an alternative
history where Germany and Japan own North America after winning World War
II.

Not to be left out in the Real Estate grabs, Australia is also colonized!

Cordwainer Smith’s Nortrilia is set in the far future after a Chinese
Empire have taken over Australia and the Australian culture survives only
on a planet around a distant star, where the Queen is STILL the head of
government, “‘cause she might bloody well come back”.

In Greg Egan’s Quarantine , New Hong Kong has been established in the
Australian Nothern Territory after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to
Chinese rule. As a result, the Australian economy booms.

Robert Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky portrays a future in which all of
Australia is Chinese.

Lastly, The Truth by Pauline Hanson (and ghostwriters) has tracts about
lesbian asiatic cyborgs, which is the most attractive thing about the
OneNation party I’ve ever heard