Interview #201—Mimi Kwa

by Shu-Ling Chua

Mimi Kwa is an author, international MC and public speaker, television presenter and former news anchor. As a journalist for twenty years, Mimi was a regular face on the ABC and Channel 9.

She features in TV commercials for global brands and in international Stan, Netflix and ABC series. Her first book House of Kwa (HarperCollins, 2021) is described as ‘Wild Swans meets Educated’, ‘Joy Luck Club meets Boy Swallows Universe’ and even, ‘Crazy Rich Asians without the rich’.

Mimi spoke to Shu-Ling Chua about family, forgiveness, gratitude, and learning to face her past.

What prompted you to write House of Kwa?

In 2013 my father sued me in the Supreme Court of Western Australia over the estate of his late sister, my beautiful and gracious aunt Theresa, with whom I was very close and who provided a beacon of light during some very dark times in my life. My hair turned grey overnight, my mental health began a downward spiral and throughout the legal battle with my dad, many memories resurfaced from my childhood, and many questions arose about my own father’s past: What would make a man sue his own daughter? The excavation of both his and my history and the exploration of our relationship [in House of Kwa] was triggered by the fight over Theresa’s will, revealing more than I could ever have imagined possible.

I didn’t set out to write a book; I was journalling, writing and researching to try to understand and make sense of my relationship with my father, as well as with my family and [other] personal traumas. Many unprocessed life events bubbled to the surface and I needed to find a place to put them, so, having enjoyed the catharsis of writing since I was small, I channelled it all on paper. Language and words have always felt liberating to me, in that they bring epiphanies and small awakenings to both writer and reader simply by coming as close as possible to explaining deep and often inexplicable feelings, emotions and innate knowledge. When I land on the right words to describe what I want to understand and/or convey, it is like a burst of colour, an incredible ‘a-ha’ moment and feeling of peaceful validation, because when the words exist, our experiences seem all the more real—although of course without language it is still real, just perhaps less reined into something rational to be acknowledged. I needed to find the language to articulate to myself the myriad of thoughts and emotions I was feeling and so the writing began and eventually, after five years, became House of Kwa.

How did you go about ‘filling in’ the inevitable gaps in memory and family history?

My dad was one of 32 brothers and sisters. One newspaper article published in the 50s said it was 28 siblings, but my father said that was because the children who died young were not counted. Conflicting facts like these formed the chronological spine of my story. ‘Grandfather died of a broken heart’ was a euphemism for suicide and ‘a terrible thing happened that day’ an allusion to rape or assault. This was the way Kwa family stories were handed down to me: a thread of a tale here and a whisper of scandal or tragedy there—romantic and mysterious, harrowing, and dramatic—I surveyed it all to weave the Kwa family saga.

My second cousin sent me an elaborate family tree going back to [my] Great Grandfather’s lineage which showed that, for the wives, unless you gave birth to a first son, your name was not recorded. Multiple wives were missing from the official Kwa genealogy: wife number two, wife number five; they were excluded from written history because their first child wasn’t a boy. That got me thinking about the historical, political and cultural climate of the past 150 years in China and Hong Kong, which wasn’t taught in school. I scurried down the rabbit hole of my Asian heritage and tied it to the narrative of the family story so that it depicted the Kwa characters in as accurate and plausible a way I could muster, making the first part of my book read like fiction even as it was steeped in the evidence of historical non-fiction. I did, of course, use my imagination to bring life and colour to the history I schooled myself on, and I am thrilled whenever readers contact me with gratitude for illuminating the WWII Hong Kong experience in particular that they, like me, had never been made aware of.

I asked my father many questions to make his story as accurate as possible, but as you will appreciate if you read House of Kwa, he is quite a tricky character to get a straight answer from, although he did lower his guard at times and those moments provided much of the gold that gilds the first two parts of the book.

One of the lines that has stayed with me—‘Sometimes the days preceding our time on earth say more about us than the days we are here’—made me think of the influence of our parents and forebears and how this can push against our personal desires and dreams. How can we learn to face our past and family without being bound by them?

The simple answer is through a willingness to learn in order to understand and accept so that we may forgive and eventually arrive at gratitude. For me the revelation has been that it is up to me and me alone to break harmful cycles from my ancestral past, in my present. I realise that this process is not instantaneous—immense healing is required in many families and in many individuals, in order to live a fulfilled and meaningful life free of shame, guilt, insecurity and loneliness. Recognising that intergenerational trauma is a real thing, and that our forebears walk with us every day, was pivotal to me in the sense of realising that we are all finding our way—as we accumulate thousands of years and layers of ancestral, cultural and societal beliefs and behaviours. We are the result of this but not the end result, because history draws through us, reaches through us and the interconnection between past, present and future means we play an inextricable part in resolving the past by healing in order to herald a better future. I have faced my past and that of my parents and ancestors and have expressed that confrontation through writing in order to set that past free. There is a fine line between [finding] this release and losing connection with one’s family—it takes mindful reflection to maintain bonds without being bound. Your question is so excellent I could talk about it much more!

How did you develop the structure and chapter titles in House of Kwa?

The structure began as a kind of homage to The Time Traveler’s Wife, that is, first with a chapter set in the present day followed by a flashback historical chapter, with the two timelines finally merging. But the complexity of the story and the sheer number of characters involved required a chronological approach for the reader to be able to stay engaged. And yet it was still very dense! With much editorial encouragement and guidance—sometimes suggesting five parts and sometimes two, depending on who I was talking to—I accepted it was indeed an ‘epic’ tale and decided to divide it into three parts: OLD KWA (all the Chinese and Hong Kong history), NEW KWA (after Dad migrated to Australia), and NOW KWA (onwards from when I was born).

The chapters were just a fun thing. I like chapter titles—many books don’t have them, but I like thinking about what the authors intention was and what they mean. I also enjoyed, after the intensity of writing the book, being able to simply find often obscure words from profound scenes and make an odd grouping of them. I enjoyed thinking about whether they fit together as nouns and how many syllables they contained and how that felt to read in my head and out loud. In saying this I think I am definitely a word nerd [laughs].

What kind of support networks were helpful as you wrote the most confronting sections?

My psychologist, and metaphor. It wasn’t so much that I told my therapist at the time that I was journalling or writing, but I definitely sought professional help during the court tussle with my father. I am the tiger on the book cover and [thinking through the idea of depicting] my father as a dragon metaphor, and how the tiger was running away was a helpful coping mechanism, as well as a whimsical way to communicate ideas about my family. Another support was my husband, John, who throughout my writing and healing journey has been stoic. Seeing our own children well-adjusted and living happy, supported lives, free of the trauma that my ancestors, parents and I have experienced, was also of great comfort during the writing of the scenes that most challenged my resolve to be utterly truthful with myself and eventually also to the community of readers whom I knew would be reading my story. Knowing I am breaking a cycle makes both the vulnerability I have embraced and the ongoing healing work I do, worthwhile.

While House of Kwa explores many difficult themes, it is ultimately a story of love, courage and survival. You write about your family’s imperfections, particularly your parents, with compassion and generosity. What did writing House of Kwa teach you?

Gratitude. But to arrive at that I first had to move through acceptance and forgiveness. I have a dear friend who, out of love and protectiveness, and also being on her own personal journey, still cannot fathom how I could forgive my father for suing me, which is actually the least of my past grievances. She would look at me and say, “How can you forgive him?” But it is through researching and writing that I have developed such compassion for my dad; I cannot but accept and forgive his harmful behaviour. This doesn’t mean I condone it, only that I am at peace with it.

Beyond that, it has been exhilarating to witness genuine gratitude emerge within myself, for everything that has come before me to place me [as someone who is] loved and loving right here, now. House of Kwa taught me self-love in a way that is the opposite of a grandiose ego-centric perception of loving oneself, but the self-love many of us have been shamed for that is regarded as being selfish and self-serving, when in fact it is the essence of what we need to embrace in order to love others wholeheartedly and to serve the greater good with complete authenticity.

I also came to more deeply accept and forgive my mother for not being the mum I yearned to have as a child, one that I so desperately needed. Acceptance and forgiveness helped me to allow more gratitude into my relationship with her.

Charismatic, elegant and independent, Aunty Theresa plays an important mentor role. I’d love to hear more about the strong female figures in your life and their influence.

They (psychologists, I think) say that no matter the dysfunction in your life you need only one consistently present strong role model who genuinely cares, to turn out a fully functioning and even, well-balanced member of society. Well, I had a few strong women and one man (my maternal grandfather), who, if I reflect and combine all their impact on my childhood, were not all there all the time but the combination of them all was powerful enough to carry me through.

Aunty Theresa was the world’s first Chinese air hostess for what is now British Airways and she led an incredible international and cosmopolitan life. She was by far the most positive and pivotal influence on me because when I was with her, I was in Hong Kong, away from the challenges of my everyday life in Perth. Theresa was both a solace, escape and an education in what was possible in life and how I could conduct myself in order to thrive, and navigate life in order to survive. She loved me unwaveringly and even when she wasn’t physically there, she wrote me long letters that ignited my imagination and gave me hope. Since passing, she continues to have a large presence in my life, providing me with strength and guidance.

My maternal grandmother, Paw Paw, who I consider to have raised me, was an incredible support [too], whilst also grappling with softening her own adult children’s hardships. I am eternally grateful for the envelope of love she cocooned me in, and her appreciation of reading, the arts and education that’s informed many of my choices and interests—my intense love of books, for one!

Can you tell us more about your path to becoming a journalist and television newsreader on the ABC and Nine Network?

When I was a little girl growing up in Perth, I used to watch journalist Jana Wendt on 60 Minutes and think [to myself], “I want to do that”. In the 70s and early 80s, there was almost no gender diversity, let alone any Asian representation on Australian screens. I couldn’t see who I wanted to be in a physical sense, but watching Jana, a brunette (in the sea of blonde anchors) and a woman (overwhelmingly outnumbered by male newscasters), gave me enough inspiration to dream myself into her role.

Fast forward to my twenties, after fleeting university distractions with Architecture, Drama and Asian Studies, I was accepted into the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) broadcasting course—an audition admission of 13 out of hundreds—and beyond that was also offered a cadetship with the ABC. I’ll never forget the moment I received the call. 3,200 people applied and only six of us got through. “How do you feel about moving to Melbourne?” the ABC recruiter asked, and [in that instant] my life changed forever. A few years later, when I moved to Channel Nine, I was given Jana’s old A Current Affairs office. I like to think I was sitting in the same chair [laughs].

Which moments or stories in your career are you most proud of?

I have so many both fantastic and meaningful memories as a journalist. Turning an interview around with Serena Williams, which was fast heading south, was a big moment for me—she invited me to go shopping with her afterwards! Apologising to Russell Crowe six months on from ambushing him at an airport, and him warmly accepting my olive branch, was unforgettable. Getting out of a news chopper at former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser’s famed Nareen Station for an exclusive interview with him was another highlight. And then there was the time the infamous Chopper Read took me on a personal tour of Pentridge Prison. It led to an invitation to his wedding, where Chopper put my terrified husband in a ‘friendly’ head lock. I have endless stories to tell about the people and events I got to cover, and there aren’t any that I am more or less proud of—I just feel very lucky, looking back over my career in general. I pinched myself then and I still do today.

Do you have any advice for emerging journalists—or advice on public speaking?

Journalism has changed so remarkably since I began in the field more than two decades ago that I will probably be considered antiquated by younger journalists these days—even saying this makes me feel like a dinosaur! There are, of course, timeless guiding tenets of the trade itself but my advice to emerging journalists would be to think about the ‘why’: Why do you want to be a journalist? Why do you want to tell stories? Then the ‘how’: How can you best be of service to your own personal growth, your audience, the greater good of the world?; ‘what’: What are you aiming to become or to achieve?; and finally, the ‘where’: Where do you imagine yourself storytelling in five, ten and twenty years?

Public speaking is a whole other kettle of fish. My simple advice there is that when we are truly aligned to be of service to our audience, big or small, our nerves naturally give way to connection, and a great performance ensues because we are invested in helping others. I live by the questions ‘how can I be of service’ and ‘how can I help here?’ To me, they are the foundations of fulfillment, personal growth, success and a meaningful life.

Who inspires you?

Other writers. I am blown away by the ability of writers to reach through to me with their words to evoke a visceral response. I am in awe of the connection books and writing cultivates between us as humans, and the understanding, empathy and compassion that language and storytelling bring. I love being part of the writing community; it is so magnificent to bond with readers and authors, euphoric in fact, and I enjoy reaching out to writers whose work move me, to let them know how much I loved their story. Even though my doing this makes my kids laugh, at what a tragic I am, I know that as a writer myself, there is nothing more lovely than hearing from a reader. My other inspiration is nature. The positive force of the ocean, in particular, helps me decompress and percolate new ideas.

What have you been reading or watching or listening to?

This week I have been reading The Silence Between Us by Oceane Campbell and Cécile Barral—a mother and daughter’s conversation through suicide and into life—which is a compelling and enlightening work that brings hope around a topic too often shrouded in fear and taboo. And I am re-reading Light on Fire by Aedamar Kirrane, which is a book about awakening to life’s true purpose.

I have been on a wonderful journey of self-compassion and conscious awakening over the past few years and find myself turning to books and podcasts from Hay House and Sounds True, as well as go-to podcast staples like Oprah’s Soul Conversations. I love listening to Eckhart Tolle too, and in stark contrast: binging Netflix! Current watches include Pieces of Her, Ozarks and WestWorld. I love The Handmaid’s Tale on SBS. Top tip: watch favourite programs with noise-cancelling headphones while cleaning up the kitchen and folding laundry.

How do you practise self-care?

I meditate, do yoga, read and try to create healthy boundaries in my relationships with family and friends, as well as my relationship with work. I recognise that historically I have used work as a distraction from confronting some of the areas in my life that need attention in order to heal, for me to be the best version of me for others and myself.

Now that I am on a healing journey, much of which has included writing my memoir, I am much more attuned to my own feelings and behaviours and more comfortable just being present without needing to do more to feel more. I can see that constant doing has eroded opportunities for simple happy moments in the past, and so, although life is busy with four children, a husband, and my mother living with me—plus two dogs and a cat!—self-care in the form of slowing down and being mindful makes a big difference to my well-being. Painting is a hobby of mine and I relish that time up late at the easel when the world feels quiet and creative energy flows. To me that is the ultimate self-care: making time do what I love to do without feeling guilty about it, even if it means waiting until the household is asleep!

What does being Asian-Australian mean to you?

Being mixed (from Chinese and English parents), I identify as being Eurasian. It has meant having the best and worst of both worlds and inheriting the intergenerational experiences from families of two very different cultures whilst being surrounded in another culture altogether. I am a kind of Venn diagram where three circles intersect (English, Chinese, Australian); I see myself as the shape in the middle where they all overlap. I cannot exist without all three circles. I would not be me.

To me, the true meaning of being Asian-Australian is the opportunity to explore and appreciate my heritage—to delve deep into culture and society thanks to the benefit of education, and to be able to experience a (globally comparatively) free and liberal existence compared to my historical roots. I do think that with migration this feeling is a universal experience for many of us, and that ultimately, the healing of intergenerational trauma and celebration of all the wonderful things about intersecting and unique cultures are essential paths to growing as humans, sharing a world where race and history are fascinating. They shape us, but do not define who we are.