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The Quiet Mic
Creating space, finding home
What you look like doesn't reliably tell you - or anyone else - where you're from, what you've lived, or who you are.
To launch The Quiet Mic, I am thrilled to share the first instalment of my conversation with Clare Courtney, a Manchester-based researcher, educator, and co-founder of the Heart and Parcel community project.
I met Clare at a kitchen-themed creative writing workshop called ‘You meet me at a very Chinese time in my life’ at Manchester Museum two weeks prior to recording this conversation. You’ll hear us talk about the characters we cooked up: Nina the Blender and Colin the Colander. As we got talking further through our shared stories, we quickly discovered the commonalities and inverse experiences of our very different lives - acting as the catalyst for this podcast idea to come to fruition.
In this episode, we reflect on the workshop as well as our respective childhoods where questions around identity first emerged.
We learn of fascinating counterpoints in our lives: Clare spent her early years in Hong Kong, while I was born and raised in the UK to Hong Kong immigrant parents. My formative years were defined by the British Chinese takeaway experience, and Clare's by the British Handover of Hong Kong back to China. De/colonisation and movement playing out in our individual lives.
Clare lands on a sense of home as something closer to movement than place, and the small, everyday things - a bowl of noodles eaten with chopsticks, and a kitchen object given a voice of its own - that end up carrying more of who we are than we realise.
Part two is coming soon. Clare and I go into more challenging terrain - from questions around the TikTok trend of 'Chinamaxxing' and cultural appropriation, to difficult experiences of bias and systemic harms - but we still find lightness and laughter along the way.
Thank you, Clare, for your trust, openness and candour.
~~~
The Quiet Mic with Ka Man Parkinson: Stories of Migration, Identity and Creativity is a cultural project which aims to amplify personal perspectives and lived experiences. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individuals only, independent of any organisational affiliations. To connect with Ka Man, visit kamanparkinson.com.
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5. Literary worlds and representation
46:22||Season 1, Ep. 5Sometimes a world you inhabit through the pages of a book can meet you more fully than the world around you.That's the feeling I came away with following my conversation with the incredible Okechukwu Nzelu, a celebrated Manchester-based novelist, academic and freelance writer.Okechukwu - or Okey for short - is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney, and Here Again Now. In this first instalment of our two-part conversation, we talk about the inspiration behind Okey's two novels - from a teenage girl finding her way to her Nigerian roots, to a reimagining of the biblical story of Ruth exploring masculinity, queerness and chosen family. We reflect on home, identity, and the communities that have shaped Okey's sense of self and his writing. Okey speaks about wanting his fiction to offer a humanising light to readers who don't always see themselves represented that way - a place of belonging where they can feel truly seen.This conversation was quite special to me due to a personal connection with Okey and the city and region we've both chosen to anchor ourselves. Our paths actually crossed for the first time almost fifteen years ago when we were members of Manchester Frontrunners running club, and we stayed loosely connected on social media, before bumping into each other in our local shop last year, only to discover we'd become near-neighbours. Our shared connection to Manchester runs through our own identities and work - a creative, egalitarian city we've each chosen as home, alongside a global outlook we both share. It feels fitting, then, that so much of our conversation turns on the idea of chosen family - the people, places and communities we choose for ourselves, wherever we happen to land.Part two is coming soon. Okey and I move into more challenging territory - his candid experiences of the publishing industry and academia as a Black British man, including prejudice, bias and systemic racism. It's a raw conversation, but one that ultimately returns to hope and community.Thank you, Okey, for your openness, wit, and the shared sense of journey and community.
4. Who do you want to be?
50:13||Season 1, Ep. 4Real change - it starts with knowing who you are, and what you actually stand for.That's the view shared by my inspiring guest, Michelle Brillouet, a London-based educator, coach, musician and creative, and founder and director of Clarity Hive, in the second instalment of our conversation.If you haven't already, do listen to part one first - Coming home to yourself - where Michelle reflects on identity, migration and home, landing on the idea of home as something closer to a feeling than a place.How can knowledge of yourself be used as a framework for effecting positive change in this world? That's what we grapple with as we delve into one of Michelle's areas of expertise: diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).Michelle offers a reframing of DEI, expanding it to bring in a sense of belonging and power. She brings in concepts like sovereignty and governance, not in terms of geopolitics or even AI, but as an individual, personal practice. DEI, she argues, cannot be achieved through piecemeal work, but through integration from the very start - and it begins with us: by knowing ourselves, and what she calls "governing ourselves."Along the way, Michelle draws on a rich range of writers and thinkers who've shaped her approach, from Yoruba spirituality to Paulo Freire and bell hooks.It all starts with knowing yourself.Thank you, Michelle, for your generosity, gentle challenge, and wisdom.
3. Coming home to yourself
34:49||Season 1, Ep. 3Home isn't always the place you started out - sometimes it's a feeling you find later, in people and places you didn't grow up with.I am delighted to welcome my second guest to The Quiet Mic: Michelle Brillouet, a London-based educator, coach, musician and creative, and founder and director of Clarity Hive.Michelle and I are former colleagues, though as she's based in London and I'm near Manchester, we were remote collaborators. So while we're certainly not strangers, we never actually spent much time together in person. It was a work podcast we made together where we properly connected, and our conversation stayed with me, planting the seed of this one.In this episode, we reflect on Michelle's family background and the path that shaped her sense of self - spanning Belgium, the UK, Haiti and the USA. Michelle grew up speaking French at home before navigating British and American identities as an adult. Meanwhile, I grew up speaking Hakka Chinese that gave way to English, moving between languages and versions of myself without ever quite naming it as that. It's quite interesting as Michelle and I are around the same age - and there's also a sense of transitioning from the analogue to the digital world, at the time of entering adulthood.Michelle lands on home as something closer to a feeling than a place - the sense of being truly seen, wherever you happen to find it.Part two is coming soon. Michelle and I grapple with questions of power and privilege together with diversity, equity and inclusion. The conversation is generative, not divisive - Michelle's insights throughout invite us to reflect and know ourselves better, ultimately to cultivate a sense of belonging.Thank you, Michelle, for your openness, wisdom and trust.
2. Liminal worlds
01:02:52||Season 1, Ep. 2Explorations of migration, identity and creativity can take us into less comfortable territory - and in this second instalment of my conversation with Manchester-based researcher and educator Clare Courtney, we explore these themes while sometimes sitting with this discomfort.Building on the counterpoints we uncovered in part one - including Clare's childhood in Hong Kong, mine growing up in the UK to Hong Kong immigrant parents - we move into more difficult terrain: how perceptions of "Chineseness" can range from the lighthearted, like the TikTok trend of Chinamaxxing, to serious questions of bias and systemic harms. We unpack some of the stereotypes that shape how Chinese and East and Southeast Asian people are often seen - hardworking yet passive, in contrast to notions of originality and creativity. As the conversation unfolds, hear how such perceptions can bear out in work, in academia, and beyond.We also explore the concept of liminality and the range of emotions and situations that can arise from occupying the in-between spaces. And Clare turns an unflinchingly honest eye on her own positionality, co-founding Heart and Parcel, asking herself difficult questions about privilege, whose experiences count, and whether good intentions equate to good outcomes.Tune in for a candid, honest conversation that invites us to reflect alongside Clare on these challenging questions - as well as lightness and moments of shared laughter along the way. Thank you to Clare for her generosity in sharing her own experiences.