Gambling in The Last Chip by Heng Tang

By ZHOU Xingzi

At 7:00p.m. on June 6th , a lecture hosted by Dr. Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia was held in Lize D406 successfully. The topic of the lecture was Chinese-Australian Cultures: Gambling in The Last Chip by Heng Tang. The audiences were the postgraduate students from different schools.

In the beginning of the lecture, Dr.Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia stated the abstract of this topic. She introduced that in the old times, Australia had a so-called “special” notion about multiculturalism. On the one hand they tended to exclude immigrants from their own land, and on the other hand they spread a notion of tolerance to the immigrants. The latter has emerged as a clear response to the long period of White Australia policy, which to some extent lead to the discrimination to Chinese immigrants and Chinese culture. Australians used to think that Chinese immigrants, who were attracted by gold rush, was one of the reasons to the descend of salary. And they also excluded Chinese traditional culture brought by Chinese immigrants.

Then, Dr. Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia introduced a movie directed by Heng Tang, called The Last Chip. This movie mainly showed Australian popular culture, such as gambling, and digged out its effect on both Australian and Chinese immigrants. Dr. Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia emphasized that there are lots of understandings to multiculturalism, and clearly Australia at that time used to have a narrow notion towards multiculturalism.

In order to help the students to understand the topic more easily, Dr. Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia used a great number of pictures and cartoons in the lecture. What’s more, her vivid body language and interesting explanation also attracted the students so much.