Qin Qin: In Conversation
Model Minority Gone Rogue
Tuesday 16 April 2024, 12–1pm
Harry Hartog ANU Campus The Australian National University
153-11 University Ave, Acton ACT 2601, Australia
Qin Qin will be in conversation with Melanie Poole on her memoir Model Minority Gone Rogue: How an unfulfilled daughter of a tiger mother went way off script – the story of a Chinese-Australian girl who did everything she was supposed to do—then grew into a woman who questioned it all.
About the Book
We all grow up with rules. Do this, be this, don't be that. Qin Qin was all about the rules: do your homework, be good, don't rock the boat. She was the model daughter, model student and model minority.
But doing everything right? It made her lost and miserable. So she decided to take a spectacular risk and change everything.
At 23, Qin Qin was an unhappy overachiever working for a prestigious law firm. So she quit. She didn't know what else was out there, but she wanted to find out. She changed paths, changed countries, changed her entire view of what the world could be, and who she could be - with some primal screaming and tree-hugging along the way. In the process, she discovered the person she truly was, not who she thought she should be.
Model Minority Gone Rogue is a funny, sad, exhilarating and thought-provoking true story about what happens when you want to live life on your own terms, even when those terms go against everything you've ever known. It's a story of what happens when you choose love over fear and honour your authentic self: life can be bigger and brighter than anything you had ever imagined.
Qin Qin (formerly Lisa Qin) was born in Southwest China and grew up in Canberra as a first-generation Chinese-Australian. She started her career at five years old as a model minority poster child doing extra maths homework and playing piano. At ANU, she studied Commerce/Law. Back then, she was too busy being a stressed out ‘good’ immigrant studying at Chiefly and the law library to follow the call to write. By 29, she was a Harvard graduate with four degrees working for the United Nations. She was later named a 40 under 40: Most Influential Asian Australian.
After many crises, she realised life wasn't an exam to ace. It was okay to disappoint people. She veered off-script and finally followed her heart to write a memoir. Qin Qin lives in Canberra with her husband James and dog Oprah. Her life mission is to live consciously with love, towards a more peaceful and sustainable world.
Hachette Australia, 2024
“Qin Qin is a living example of the adage: screw things up, thoughtfully. With every chapter of her story, she illuminates an alternative model to the corrosive stories we’ve taken on and been told about what we should be, rather than who we could be. Read this and feel yourself untangle and unknot.”
Melanie Poole is the CEO of the Mental Health Community Coalition, the peak body for over 50 mental health services in the ACT. She also serves as a board director for Meridian, the ACT's LGBTIQ health service. Melanie's background encompasses international, national, and local human rights advocacy, law reform campaigns and community development, including work with refugees and internally displaced people in Kenya and Pakistan, and with prisoners in the United States. A Fulbright-Anne Wexler Scholar, Melanie holds a Masters in Public Administration from New York University, and Arts and Law degrees from the Australian National University. She is a regular guest lecturer at the Australian National University, Sydney University and the University of Canberra.