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where the neo-colonialist industries still bear British names, but where the streets are bustling
with the Chinese, Malays and Indians whose racial and economic competition is well suited to
‘Orientalist’ stereotyping. The Chinese girls are still ‘slick and pretty as dolls’, but, unlike the
immutable Singapore girls, they are on the move in busy streets smelling ‘sweetly of incense
and spices’. Chinese families are in their shops, furtively ‘engaged in trivial, mysterious
activities’. The Indians are selling ‘poisonous-looking delicacies’ (TB, 82). A Malay cloth
seller promises whatever he thinks Judith wants, not even hesitating in his contradictions (TB,
83). One Chinese man ‘cooking at a mobile stall, frying garlic’ is in a screaming match with a
Chinese woman leaning out from an upper-level window (TB, 95). An airline worker
caricatures the old Australian image of Chinese tact and trustworthiness when Judith’s bags are
lost:
The most important male—one wearing a suit not a uniform—led her to the
desk where he unfolded a telephone message slip. ‘We rang Quantas for you.
You baggage is located. It is going to London!’ He was overjoyed by his
cleverness but skilfully adjusted his face when Judith replied, ‘Shit.’
‘Aaagh?’ he said.
‘How long before I can have it back here?’
He held his hand in the air and rotated it swiftly. ‘Four-five days, la.’
He saw this caused displeasure. ‘One-two days, la!’ (TB, 82-83)
It is not an easy destination to travel to, but Judith’s impressions during her walk
through Kuala Lumpur are generally positive. This, d’Alpuget tells us, is the Asia which
should interest Australians—exotic, colourful, rather mad, and not all that far from home, for it
‘could have been a hot summer morning in Sydney’s Dixon Street’ (TB, 82).
Very similar dualities are to be found in each of the novels studied here, and their appeal
to the reading public is based on the universality of clichés. Considering the xenophobia
exhibited by Australians, one might wonder if the images of military authoritarianism,
violence, religious intolerance and racism which are so fundamental to the novels might also
be transferred, in the minds and fears of Australian readers, into the Asian neighbourhoods as
Sydney’s Dixon Street. Yet, an unexpected cliché might gain in currency by marrying it to an
expected one. The power of the cliché is, after all, partly in making the illogical seem
reasonable and rendering the intolerable quite acceptable. Part of d’Alpuget’s strategy is
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