[For most white Australians, L.G. and L.B. do not mean much, but find a group of young Asian-Australians here in Sydney and they will reel off an archetype. L.G.s and L.B.s are attractive, confident and outspoken. They hail from the city’s diverse western suburbs and they have the accents and the work ethic to prove it. They are devotees of trance or hardstyle (two differing genres of electronic music with ethereal vocals or a harsh, aggressive bass), and build their style on a foundation of expensive Adidas sneakers and Nike sports bras.]
By Isabella Kwai
 |
|
Young Asian-Australians at the Sanctuary Hotel,
a gathering place in Sydney for
members of the “little boy” and “little girl”
scene. CreditDavid
Maurice Smith
for The New York Times
|
SYDNEY, Australia — Tan Falconer stood in the
crowd milling outside the Sanctuary Hotel, a classic Sydney pub, cigarette in
one hand. With the other, he greeted a stream of fashionable friends — men in
tight shirts with hair smoothly buzzed on the sides, women with highlights and
heavily drawn brows.
Nearly everyone there was part of an emerging
cross-cultural scene centered on an Asian-Australian identity: electronic
music, athleisure fashion and social media savvy.
They often call themselves the “little girls”
and “little boys” of Sydney and Melbourne, or L.G.s and L.B.s for short.
“We feel comfortable and more at ease when we
share the same issues,” said Mr. Falconer, 23, who is of Thai-Chinese heritage
and a project manager at a construction and engineering firm. “We come together
to drink and laugh it off.”
For most white Australians, L.G. and L.B. do
not mean much, but find a group of young Asian-Australians here in Sydney and
they will reel off an archetype. L.G.s and L.B.s are attractive, confident and
outspoken. They hail from the city’s diverse western suburbs and they have the
accents and the work ethic to prove it. They are devotees of trance or
hardstyle (two differing genres of electronic music with ethereal vocals or a
harsh, aggressive bass), and build their style on a foundation of expensive
Adidas sneakers and Nike sports bras.
Almost certainly, they have an Instagram account.
And they represent what Australia
increasingly looks like. According to census results released this week, one in
two Australians are now either born overseas or have a parent who was born
overseas, and that cohort is more likely to have roots in Asia than Europe for
the first time since colonization.
In a country that is still trying to reconcile
its multicultural population with its “Australia-First” rhetoric, the L.G.s and
L.B.s — who have grown up melding the expectations of immigrant heritage and
traditional Australian identity — have carved out their own community, online
and off, with a self-image that is still very much in flux.
The little girl label seems to be a spinoff
from a somewhat contemptuous shorthand applied by Asian-American communities in
the United States to young Asian women who wore designer clothes and acted
tough: A.B.G.s, or Asian Baby Girls.
Both terms have been batted around by young
people in the United States and Canada since the early 2000s.
But by the time Mr. Falconer and some friends
created a Facebook page in April dedicated to the L.G.s of Sydney and Melbourne,
and another for the L.B.s, the term had already landed in the Asian-Australian
community, with a mix of amusement and annoyance.
Giffie Ngo, 19, a student at the University
of Technology Sydney who is from Bankstown, is reluctant to call herself an
L.G. even though she is an administrator of the Facebook page and a regular at
the raves that its followers attend. Many of the other young women in the scene
also do not quite embrace the title either, even as they concede that they fit
its parameters.
The term can be “sort of derogatory,” Ms. Ngo
said, like an Asian-Australian parallel to the “guido” and “guidette” personas
for Italian-Americans popularized by the television show “Jersey Shore.”
That is part of what Mr. Falconer is trying
to change. He said he created a presence on Facebook to mobilize the existing
community and reverse the label’s negative connotations.
The page, which reaches more than 30,000
people, invites Sydney and Melbourne residents to submit photos of themselves
or friends who fit the aesthetic and consent to be featured. Mr. Falconer and a
team of administrators look through about 50 submissions a week, posting memes
that poke fun at the subculture’s silliest aspects (like a reverence for
Sanctuary’s Long Island ice teas) while also paying tribute to those who
exemplify the group’s ethos: “Party hard, work and study hard.”
And despite their ethnicity, they say the
page is multicultural and open to all young Australians.
Catharine Lumby, a professor of media at
Macquarie University in Sydney, said that for young Asian-Australians, and
other groups of young people, social media and face-to-face social life have
become indistinguishable.
“The positive side of social media is that
it’s giving young people a voice and a way to explore their identities,” she
said.
The danger, she cautioned, is that these
explorations are pushed out to a world with pre-existing biases of race and
gender that may seek to undermine those seeking freedom and safety in a more
welcoming setting.
Some of the women in the L.G. world
acknowledged that broadcasting their look on social media came with risks.
“Some comments you like, some comments you
don’t,” said Bianca Ha, an administrator of the page from Liverpool, whose
picture was posted in the page’s early days.
While some of the L.B.s can at times seem to
be playing the role of traditional Aussie lads, acting crass and carousing, she
said the Facebook page can be empowering — a way for some women to take control
of how they are portrayed.
Eventually, Mr. Falconer wants to create a
brand, produce merchandise and figure out how to make money with the L.B.-L.G.
scene. A meme he made about a coming trance music festival went viral; he is
now partnering with the festival’s promoters on ticket sales.
Maybe, he said, the scene will eventually
lead him further up Australia’s economic and social ladder, beyond his
upbringing by a single mother in Parramatta.
“I want to be married and have kids,” Mr.
Falconer said, when asked what he envisioned for himself in 10 years. “I want
to go to a restaurant and not have to worry about the menu price.”
But on a recent Friday night, with the chorus
of The Weeknd’s “I Feel It Coming” picking up, none of that mattered. The crowd
of young Australians, sons and daughters of immigrants from China, Thailand,
Vietnam and other countries, were busy hitting the beat.
Two white men, huddled over beers at a table
nearby, looked bewildered. “I don’t know why there are so many Asians here,”
said Mark Williams, a local resident from St. Leonards. “I’m trying to work it
out.”
