From: S.L. Oei
Date:  Saturday, April 01, 2000 12:36 AM
To:  petertee@huaren.com

As an ethnic Chinese person from Indonesia - living in the Netherlands - I always regret the fact that I have never seen the history or culture of my ethnic group reflected on television, in literature, in films, or even in comic books. Things that other ethnic groups can take for granted.
I would like to change this, and I'm looking for other ethnic Chinese (originally) from Indonesia to help me. What I would like to do is to collect short stories from ethnic Chinese from Indonesia that now live spread around the world, and find a publisher to edit and publish it.
I like to spread and reproduce our heritage, our experiences and our culture before it's lost. I'm sure there are plenty of ethnic Chinese from Indonesia that have writing aspirations. This project might be just the encouragement they need to sit behind the computer and write a short story. It doesn't matter which generation you belong to. I think it will be more interesting if the writers were from different age groups and living in different countries.
Are there still things that we have in common, things that bind us together, things that we share? What is it like to be once again an ethnic minority in an other country? What is the story behind our migration? How was the adjustment like?
Wouldn't it be great for all of us to recognize things that are told in the stories? Cause people read to know that they are not alone.

As for myself, I'm an aspirant writer living in Holland, and I'm looking forward to the challenge of writing a short story about my own ethnic group in this country.

I think it's best if the stories were written in English. So if someone has an idea how to approach a publisher in the States or in Australia or in the UK, please contact me.
Everyone that is interested in, or has ideas for this project should contact me. And as soon as I find a publisher that is interested, you could send your short story to the publisher.
Please forward this summons to every ethnic Chinese from Indonesia that you know with writing skills. Thank You !

Sian Lien Oei
 Sian0@hetnet.nl

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