Tze Ming Mok (; born 1978) is a fiction writer and sociopolitical commentator, and has been a prominent New Zealand Asian community advocate.

Biography

Mok was born in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

, New Zealand, growing up in the suburb of

Mount Roskill Mount Roskill is a suburban area in the city of Auckland, New Zealand. It is named for the volcanic peak Puketāpapa (commonly called "Mount Roskill" in English). Description The suburb, named after the Mount, is located seven kilometres to ...

. Her parents came to New Zealand in 1973 as international students studying medicine, and were originally from

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

. Mok received her degrees at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

. She has an MA in political studies, with a thesis titled ''In the name of the Pacific: Theorising pan-Pacific identities in Aotearoa New Zealand''. Mok works in

human rights and development Development is a human right that belongs to everyone, individually and collectively. Everyone is “entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamenta ...

. She received her Doctor of Philosophy from the London School of Economics in 2019 with a thesis titled ''Inside the box: ethnic choice and ethnic change for mixed people in the United Kingdom''. Mok's most prominent period of advocacy for New Zealand Asian, migrant, and

New Zealand Chinese Chinese New Zealanders ( mi, Tāngata Hainamana o Aotearoa; ) or Sino-New Zealanders are New Zealanders of Chinese ancestry. The largest subset of Asian New Zealanders, many of the Chinese immigrants came from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, ...

communities was the period 2005–2007, during which time her ethnopolitical blog Yellow Peril was featured on the popular New Zealand group blog Public Address, and she wrote an opinion column on race relations and Asia-Pacific issues in New Zealand's national Sunday newspaper, ''

The Sunday Star-Times The ''Sunday Star-Times'' is a New Zealand newspaper published each weekend in Auckland. It covers both national and international news, and is a member of the New Zealand Press Association and Newspaper Publishers Association of New Zealand. ...

''. In 2004, she led an anti-racist march to

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

, in response to hate crimes. In 2007, she and other Asian community leaders organised a successful

New Zealand Press Council The New Zealand Media Council (Māori: ''Te kaunihera ao pāpāho o Aotearoa'') is a non-governmental organisation which exists to uphold standards in the New Zealand media industry and promote freedom of speech in New Zealand. Founded in 1972 as ...

challenge of a magazine article that had been published in the national monthly magazine of note, North & South. The article, 'Asian Angst' by former Member of Parliament

Deborah Coddington Deborah Coddington is a New Zealand journalist and former ACT New Zealand politician. Pre-political career Coddington, born in Waipukurau, worked from 1973 to 1984 as a magazine journalist, but in 1985 moved to Russell, a town in the Bay of I ...

, was found to be inaccurate and racially discriminatory.

Publication

Her poems, stories, reviews, opinions, and journalism have appeared in a range of publications including: *'' The Kyoto Journal'' *''

Landfall Landfall is the event of a storm moving over land after being over water. More broadly, and in relation to human travel, it refers to 'the first land that is reached or seen at the end of a journey across the sea or through the air, or the fact ...

'' (including guest editorship of Autumn 2006 issue) *''

'' (weekly column 2006) * ''Sport'' *''Poetry NZ'' *''

Meanjin ''Meanjin'' (), formerly ''Meanjin Papers'' and ''Meanjin Quarterly'', is an Australian literary magazine. The name is derived from the Turrbal word for the spike of land where the city of Brisbane is located. It was founded in 1940 in Brisbane ...

'' *''JAAM'' * ''The Listener''

References

External links

Tze Ming Mok's websiteTze Ming Mok's blog Yellow Peril on publicaddress.netNew Zealand Press Council ruling
on 'Asian Angst' by

in '' North & South'' magazine 1978 births New Zealand people of Chinese descent New Zealand human rights activists Women human rights activists Living people New Zealand essayists New Zealand women poets University of Auckland alumni People from Auckland New Zealand women essayists 21st-century New Zealand women writers 21st-century New Zealand writers {{NewZealand-writer-stub