Hairy tradies on menu of former Mount Gambier woman Ra Chapman’s new risque romantic comedy
A Korean girl adopted into a loving family in Mount Gambier has turned her adult reckoning with identity into a sexy rom-com – where hairy Aussie tradies are on the menu.
SA Weekend
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When Ra Chapman was subjected to a racial taunt in Mount Gambier, it would take her a moment to realise it was meant for her. After being adopted from Korea at the age of four, Chapman pressed the reset button and, at least in her mind, became a young white schoolgirl.
As an adult and after some soul-searching about where she belonged, Chapman has written and stars in a six-part ABC series, White Fever, about an Asian woman with a taste for hairy Australian tradies who sets out to “decolonise her libido”. The fictional character Jane, by coincidence, was adopted into a loving white family and grew up in a conservative Aussie country town, in this case Mount Whiteman.
Chapman stresses that Jane is fictional and White Fever is not biographical but the crossovers are clear.
“Of course, there were always moments when maybe someone treated me differently because of the way I looked,” Chapman says of her childhood in Mount Gambier.
“And to be honest those moments were quite shocking to me, because I didn’t think about being adopted, I didn’t think about looking Asian so when those moments arose, they took me quite by surprise.”
She would have to remind herself, “that’s right, I do look different”, but she gave it little thought.
THE EARLY YEARS
At school she was drawn to the creative arts and did jazz ballet, callisthenics and competitive aerobics which allowed her to express herself through movement. After completing an arts degree at the University of South Australia, she moved to London to act in amateur theatre and see the world. She attracted an agent and was cast in a variety of Asian roles that were not remotely connected to who she was.
Back in Australia, TV and film opened their doors and she played Kim Chang in the Wentworth Prison for five seasons from 2013 until 2017. After leaving the show, she was drawn to exploring more complex roles for Asian Australian women that more closely reflected the experience of people from a background like hers.
This creative interest followed a dramatic shift in her personal identity. In a process she calls “having the rug pulled out from under my feet” she returned to Korea for numerous visits, and in her late 20s met her birth father.
“My parents actually took me back to Korea when I was about 10 or 12, that was their way of trying to keep me connected,” Chapman says. “Back then, to be honest, I wasn’t interested, I just wanted to fit in here. This country felt so foreign to me.”
Chapman arrived in Australia speaking Korean but a few years later had forgotten it all and had no interest in Korean culture other than liking some of the food and comics. But in her late 20s, with the support of her family, she decided to go back.
“One thing I have taken from life for White Fever – which is otherwise entirely fictional – is that I also received a letter from my birth father when I was around 14,” she says. “I did read it but, like Jane, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
While her mother encouraged her to write back, she was confused and upset to get a letter from her birth country. She thought of herself as an Australian teenager and it was only later that she could understand and connect.
That experience drove her to write the series about a vivacious Korean Australian who has to reappraise her own life and assumptions when she realises her sexual obsession with Aussie tradies is a symbol of something much deeper.
LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX
White Fever takes a robust approach to sex and is not for the prudish. In one episode, Jane buys an Asian sex doll in an attempt to rewire her libido but – and this is where the rom-com factor creeps in – she also starts falling for an Asian-Australian man who she used to play with when they were young.
The title White Fever is Chapman’s own humorous poke at the more offensive “yellow fever” term used to describe an Australian male fetish for Asian women, and it is typical of the infectious spirit Chapman brings to a serious subject.
“It is quite funny, but I guess at its core it is quite complex, that you’re surrounded by a certain race or people and what that does to you,” she says. “The pull that can have over you is really interesting.”
Chapman says the series concept was not hard to sell to the ABC, despite the boldness of the main character, the risque tone and the core idea of exploring the cultural complexities of Asian-Australian identity.
“The industry was really receptive and we wanted to create something that was really daring, that pushed the boundaries a bit, but was not just daring for daring’s sake, not just shock value,” Chapman says. “We wanted to juxtapose that with a deeper discovery.”
So, while on the surface, Jane makes a decision to swear off burly Australian men and date Asians, the way it unfolds exposes the fault lines in her own identity.
There are plenty of laughs but the underlying message is about connections and belonging and what it is to be loved.
Its theme has echoes of other recent cross-cultural film and TV programs, including the SBS series The Family Law, based on Benjamin Law’s book about his Chinese Australian family; and the Oscar nominated movie Past Lives, which captures very movingly the attraction between a fully-integrated Korean-American woman whose childhood friend – the one she would have married had she stayed – visits her in New York.
The experience of the Korean adoptee has tentacles into cultures throughout Europe, America and Canada as well as Australia and some very touching stories have become films, including Riceboy Sleeps (2022), about a Korean boy being raised by his single Korean mother in Canada.
Chapman felt spurred on to write White Fever because she had always sought out this kind of content.
“But I didn’t want to see and look for things overseas, I wanted to make something that was quintessentially Australian, and for Aussies, but very specific to the Asian diaspora experience here,” Chapman says. “That amazing content around the world has really inspired me to do something similar that was Australian.”
A LONG PROCESS
It has taken four years to develop the script and to film the six episodes and Chapman attracted a strong cast and crew, some from Asian backgrounds. They include writer Michele Lee, a Hmong-Australian who works across television, film, stage, books and live art, and the line producer Lisa Wang whose large body of work includes The Family Law (SBS) and PS I Love You (ABC).
Chapman was thrilled to secure as the male lead the in-demand and very good-looking Melbourne actor Chris Pang who plays Jane’s old school friend Yu Chang, known at school as George.
Pang returned to Australia to play Chang after a career including Blade of the 47 Ronin, the indie hit Palm Springs and the 2018 Warner Bros breakout hit, Crazy Rich Asians.
“We really wanted him and are so lucky that he agreed to come back and be in our show. He is really supportive of Asian Australian stories and wanted to do something in Australia,” Chapman says.
Part of the roller coaster process of getting the series made was that it took Pang some time to pick up a script from an unknown Australian writer and actor. But the Asian diaspora being what it is, producer Lisa Wang happened to know Pang’s family in Australia and she engineered to make sure he read it.
“After he read the script, he was really interested and agreed to come on board, and he is amazing,” Chapman says.
On the brink of the series launch, Chapman says she is excited, proud and a tiny bit nervous. Even though the story is fiction, it carries an emotional truth that reflected her own experience. Despite that, she has no fears about how it might be received in Mount Gambier, or by her friends and family.
“It is not a memoir, it’s not documentary,” she laughs. “I hope no one in Mount Gambier would take offence to this because it is not based on anyone in particular, and I wanted to be very respectful of my family and my friends. There are a lot of aspects of Jane that are nothing to do with my lived experience or story.”
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