As an Australian of Chinese heritage who jokes he could eat for his country of birth, I had never heard of a dish called egg foo young. So it is not without considerable irony that it took a racist troll to introduce me to it.
DRS and lbw are two of cricket’s most well-known acronyms, but I doubt they have ever featured in a story about racism. Bear with me, even if cricket’s not your go. There’s something for everyone, especially if you like your yarns with a twist.
A sample of the emails sent to Age and Sydney Morning Herald reporter Andrew Wu in 2017.Credit:The Age
Let me set the scene. It’s March 2017 and the Australian men’s Test team is in the midst of a keenly fought and spiteful series in India. I am covering the tour for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Relations between the two sides are frayed after former India captain Virat Kohli accused Australia of systematic rorting of the decision review system (DRS).
Given out leg before wicket to a grubber from Umesh Yadav at a key point in the game, the then Australian skipper Steve Smith looked up to the dressing room for advice on whether to review the decision, which is forbidden.
Smith later described this as a “brain fade”, and Cricket Australia fiercely defended their captain’s integrity while fans around the country took him at his word. This is a year before the sandpaper affair.
Hours after I file the first of my reports on the controversy, the emails start.
“The last time I checked China wasnt [sic] in the ICC,” one email read. (Incorrect. They were.)
“Egg Foo Young isn’t on the teams lunch menu the last time i [sic] checked. So STFU and stop writing nonsense about the Indian Cricket team,” read another.
Reporter Andrew Wu.Credit:Sydney Morning Herald
The nastiness escalated. Almost daily across the next two weeks, I am subjected to a stream of online abuse.
Many are from the same troll, whose naked contempt for the Australian Test team is interwoven with his racist vitriol. Thanks to a random name generator, let’s call him Anish. Here are some edited highlights.
“Never send a boy on a man’s errand…never sent [sic] a chinaman on a cricket assignment!”
“What does a wannabe Oz Chinaman know about cricket?”
“Chinaman tell us what the freakin hell do you know about cricket let alone the pitch? Your sarcasm shows up and proves you have no wit. Trying too hard to be an Ozzie?”
“Ricardo” wants me to return to North Korea instead to help my brother Kim Jong Un’s nuclear missile program.
Unhappy with my supposedly partisan reporting, “Leah” from the UK tells me to “f— off back to China to comment on ping pong” but not before delivering their chicken chow mein.
Days later, I had also upset a section of cricket fans back home with my column calling for the term “chinaman” to be banished from the game. How’s that for balance?
As a journalist, I am accustomed to robust feedback on my work on social media, but this was unacceptable. The feedback this tour from cricket fans has been firm but, thankfully, not racist.
As much as being a high school student during the Pauline Hanson years had hardened me to racial abuse, it was jarring to read such correspondence alone in my hotel room thousands of kilometres from home.
The easy option would have been to shoulder arms but, to use another cricket analogy, there are times when you have to play your shots.
I hit back on social media by posting screen grabs of their emails, though, in all likelihood, these people posted using pseudonyms. While satisfaction was fleeting, I did hit a sore spot.
One reader, seemingly more upset by my response than they were to the abuse I received, wrote to our customer advocate account condemning my “appalling behaviour” for not respecting my troll’s privacy.
Meanwhile, emails kept coming from “Anish”. It was a longshot, but I needed to track him down. It was easily done by searching a few key terms on Google.
My heart raced as I punched in the phone number. I had a rough idea what I would say to him, but nothing ever prepares you for the moment. Suddenly, the dial tone was broken by a voice at the other end. A female voice.
“Hello, is Anish there please?” I asked in a professional manner.
“No sorry, he’s out,” his colleague replied.
“Would Anish happen to be an Indian cricket fan?″
The unorthodox line of questioning clearly piqued her curiosity.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“No reason. Could you please tell him Andrew Wu from the Sydney Morning Herald called? He’ll know why.”
His colleague assures me she will pass on the message. I do not leave a number. Sometimes, longshots do get up.
Throughout the drama, my colleagues on tour – they know who they are – stood by me. So too my sports editor and other senior management in the newsroom, who backed me to the hilt. I thank them all.
Together, we decided an email would be written to each perpetrator condemning their behaviour and informing them of the criminal laws they had breached and the company’s intent to provide their details to their local authorities.
Leah and Ricardo both wrote grovelling apologies, but I have not heard from Anish and do not expect to.
I have since learned egg foo young is a fried egg patty. For Anish, it is a dish best served cold.
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