Chineseness

China rises,
as do I.
Perhaps I'll be Chinese
long after I die.

Til then, I'm chaotic.
Multi-generationally diasporic.

English is my language,
honed and crafted in a body that is Chinese
and a mind that alchemically works
to integrate these, even as:
This language is my language
English belongs to me.

There is no original language
Everything is translation.

I was not Born Chinese.
I have claimed it.

Diaspora

My parents, my brother, and I moved to Singapore when I was about six. It was my first immigrant experience. According to my parents, for a while after we moved into our new place, I kept asking when we would go home. An image that stays with me somehow is looking out the window of our fifth floor flat, watching my father walk across the carpark to get in the car to go to work.

In Singapore, my parents would today be called “foreign talent” (I’m not sure if the term was as in wide circulation in the 80s when we migrated), or perhaps “expats” (though that term to me always had connotations of whiteness). They were firmly in the professional class of lawyers, doctors, academics. In fact, many Malaysians moved to Singapore to find work, and that number has grown over the years. In 1990, Malaysians made up 3.7% of the population of Singapore. In 2010, that number was 9.7%.

The terms “foreign talent” and “expatriate” have a certain glamor about them, suggesting a successful, exotic, highly intelligent and/or capable person whose presence in a country is at the very least exciting. A “foreign talent”’s presence could inspire happiness or even gratitude in an imagined native born citizen, who benefits from the expertise and cultural goods that such a visitor brings. As this rather optimistic headline on a letters page of AsiaOne reads, "Majority say foreign talent is the way to go."

Of course, the deliberate use of these terms is in fact calculated to officially foreclose the possibility of (to render unthinkable, uncivilized) the very real resentment of actual citizens who perceive themselves displaced, put upon, or invaded. For those unfortunates who are marked as “migrants” there is little attempt to even mask this xenophobia.

It’s also worth noting that there are other immigrants in Singapore who are not generally referred to as “foreign talent,” but are rather “unskilled workers” or “migrant workers.” They are differently stigmatized (as prone to criminality and a source of disposable labor). However, just having the label of "foreign talent" does not protect one from being the target of "local" resentment or hatred.

After the Olympics this year, the issue of “foreign talent” was in the news in Singapore, and not always in a good way. At the Summer Olympics, Feng Tianwei, who was born in China and became a Singaporean citizen in 2008, won a Bronze medal in the women’s singles table tennis. She is Singapore’s first Olympic individual medalist in 52 years, and the only Olympic individual medalist since Singapore’s independence from Malaysia in 1965. (As a side note, Singapore’s first and only other individual Olympic medalist, Tan Howe Liang, who won the Silver for lightweight weightlifting at the 1960 games in Rome, was also a Chinese immigrant).

Feng’s win, perhaps predictably, triggered an outpouring of vocal ambivalence from Singaporeans on the internet. The Financial Times' brief survey of how the public debate over immigration has been playing out recently in Singapore is revealing:

Comments on social media sites were quick to point out that Ms Feng was born in mainland China and did not get Singapore citizenship until 2008. Meanwhile, 77 per cent of respondents in an online poll conducted by Yahoo Singapore said they were “not proud” of a “foreign import” winning an Olympic medal.

“Honestly, I cannot bring myself to feel proud for a foreigner to win a medal for us, although they carry our Singapore flag,” one person wrote on Yahoo’s Facebook page.

Xenophobia is an almost inevitable (some might say deliberate) product of a highly nationalistic government. In the U.S., there happen to be two slightly different parties that trade power espousing somewhat different flavors of what is essentially the same nationalist ideology, which is echoed by corporations and their media outlets. In Singapore, there is one ruling party that has been in power for quite a while, and that builds nationalism into school curricula and public media.

Never mind that, like the U.S., the majority ethnic/racial group in Singapore (Chinese) is itself descended from migrants, many of whom actually came to Singapore or Malaysia in living memory, and are relatively new immigrants to the region. Now that they (we!) are there, it’s time to turn around and keep someone else out. It seems to me that xenophobia is the dark shadow of any diaspora people who have attempted to make themselves a new home, and to cement their belonging-ness with the blunt tool of nation-building.

Currently, Israel is in the news because it has commenced a bombing campaign in Gaza, with the justification given being that Hamas launched a rocket into Israel. As with almost any new incident involving Israel’s ongoing project of militarized nationalism, it feels almost impossible to talk about competently without years of study of the history of the region. However, I think it is safe to say that there is some sympathetic resonance (in addition to the obvious political connection) between Israel’s attempt to suppress a native population, with the U.S.’s own long history of the suppression of and genocide against Native Americans by a government historically most committed to the advancement of white elites, whose ancestors left Europe, whether to escape religious persecution or to better amass wealth, and who consider North America to be home.

There is an almost unbearable tension in the hearts of a diaspora people between acknowledging their immigrant past and embracing their new home. Even when the immigration has not happened in one’s lifetime, this tension persists. Attempts to resolve it by jettisoning or minimizing the immigrant history and identity lead to xenophobia and genocide in a pathological and ultimately futile attempt to externalize what is in fact an internal battle by seeking to destroy or harm “outsiders” (despite being outsiders ourselves), or seeking to destroy those who were already here (whose existence is a constant reminder of our own foreign-ness).

While Asian Americans often criticize the (white) hegemonic view of them (us?) as “perpetual foreigners,” I wonder too if it might be wise to hold on to some of this identity as “foreign,” to not blend into (white) America the way that the Italians and Irish did, in order to not replicate the xenophobia and genocidal impulses connected to a (white) American identity.

Especially as a middle-class immigrant who gets along pretty well in predominantly white settings (whatever my actual comfort level), there is a strong temptation to believe that other stereotype, that Asians are the “model minority” and are virtually white. It’s a comforting idea, that maybe this phenomenon of (white) Americans treating or regarding me as “not belonging” here might one day come to an end. However, if the price of avoiding being the target of others’ xenophobia is to become xenophobic oneself, or to endorse genocide, then I think that price is not worth paying. Ultimately, all immigrants and their descendants must walk the harder path, but one that I think ultimately preserves our integrity and humanity, that of grappling with and healing our own woundedness, and re-learning the meaning of “home.”

Are you Chinese?

Sometimes I’m resentful not because people are disrespecting my culture, but because I’m bitter about what I don’t know. This face and this name give rise to assumptions about access to culture I haven’t always had. At other times, I stubbornly refused to learn: speaking Chinese is only cool or impressive when you’re not Chinese. As a child I was dismissive – why bother when I already have the name and the face?

http://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-208/feature-juliana-qian/
On Saturday, a postal worker, on seeing my face as I opened the door for him, started speaking to me in a Chinese dialect that I did not recognize. Maybe it was Hakka. He was an older man.
My confusion registered. He switched to English and asked "Are you Chinese?"
I paused, then said "Yes." I thought, oh god now he's going to try to figure out where I'm from.
He switched to Mandarin and asked "Do you speak Mandarin (Pu Tong Hua)?"
I paused, longer this time. Then said yes in Mandarin. I could feel my dread and shame building, anticipating a conversation happening in which my lack of fluency in Mandarin would be exposed, to my discredit. This lack of fluency would confirm me as Westernized, not to be trusted, not truly a Chinese ally in this predominantly white and black neighborhood. A Complete Disappointment.
We proceeded to have a conversation about my family name, and what Chinese character was represented by the Romanized version he saw on the mail addressed to me. My Mandarin was halting, but good enough for him to understand. I understood everything he said in Mandarin, but it took me a few moments every time he finished speaking to process what he had said and to compose my response in my head.
Eventually he realized that small talk was going to be difficult for me in Mandarin. We made our awkward goodbyes. He had me sign for a package, but I think he forgot to give me the rest of my mail. I didn't know how to ask for it in Mandarin, so I didn't say anything.

Say my name, say my name

Reading this post in PERIL, linked to on a previous post by shinenigan, got me thinking more about something that happened to me yesterday.

A friend (and colleague) and I were talking about the many situations in which schools will allow a student to informally change their name, without having to go through some process of filling out forms and getting approved by the school bureaucracy (or even more burdensome, having to go to court to get an order of name change).

This was in the context of making the case that if schools allowed students to easily change their names, they should not be singling out transgender or gender non-conforming students for especially burdensome name-change requirements when they requested to be called by their preferred name.

As some background, my colleague is White. We were talking with another attorney who was Chinese (like me). My colleague and I were quickly listing the contexts in which non-transgender students might ask for, and routinely get, an informal name change: in the case of a divorce, a student might change their last name to the custodial parent's; a student might prefer to use their middle name; a student might prefer to use an abbreviation of their full name (e.g., John instead of Jonathan, Nick instead of Nicholas). Then my colleague added that a student with a non-Anglo name might choose to take on an Anglo name.

This brought me up short. I was a little stunned, to be honest. I don't think that my colleague was intending to bring up the entire background of "othering," of Asian people feeling never quite at home in a country (indeed, because of colonization, a world) full of Anglo names. I wanted to say: let's be clear - informally taking on an Anglo name is not a preference, it is almost necessarily a (somewhat bitter) compromise. The deal is: I'll take on a less "foreign" sounding name, and you accept me as fully a member of this school community. Unfortunately, of course, since racism persists (yes! even among schoolchildren!), the deal is never made good on.

Anyway, that's sort of what was running through my head, but I didn't say anything at the time. Partly because I didn't feel that strongly about it right then (or am I numb to the pain of racism?), and partly because I didn't want to get into a whole discussion about it at the time (it was lunch!). Today, I decided to send an email to my friend about it. Here's what I wrote:

I just wanted to drop you a note about one of the examples you used when we were talking informally . . . about situations in which students get a school to acknowledge and respect a preferred name. You gave as one example that some students with non-Anglo names would adopt a name that's easier for people to say. I totally agree that this is a not uncommon practice, and that you are right that many teachers probably are almost even relieved to make the switch to the more Anglo name, but I wanted to let you know that it brought up the whole history of racism and xenophobia in this country for me.I didn't feel THAT strongly about it at the time (or I would have told you right away, of course!), but it did make me somewhat uneasy, and when I was thinking about this later, I thought I'd let you know. Part of me feels like, even though it's actually a great example of a common reason for students to use a preferred name over the name given at birth, that it risks bringing up that whole history for someone in the room. We were talking about it informally in a small circle of friends, so that was obviously less risky!However, I think that if we use this example in public (and I kind of want to at some point), we should acknowledge that part of what's going on there is a kind of compromise with a racist society, and that this is something people of color do all the time to have some safety or to not constantly be overtly "othered". I'm sure there's some less "heavy" way to acknowledge that, of course, and would love to get your ideas.I thought that you did a great job acknowledging a related issue with gender identity and medical intervention (that some trans people decide not to change their bodies in a particular socially-prescribed way, acknowledging that it's society that has a problem with their bodies, not them, and that all people deserve respect for their gender identity whatever medical intervention they have or have not had).

On Being Called Upon To Speak Mandarin

A white colleague asked me today for what she called a "totally non-gay favor." Intrigued and always eager to please (or at least eager to appear eager to please) I said sure, what is it?

She had, she said, during her casual carpool, met a man who was facing some problems at work, possibly because of his race or language. He had also, during the car ride, been speaking with another passenger in some kind of Chinese dialect. When she asked him whether he had been speaking in Mandarin or Cantonese (because she could not tell the difference), he told her he had been speaking both.

"You speak Mandarin, right?" she asked me.

I felt a kind of fear rising in me. Being asked whether I speak Mandarin or another Chinese dialect is a fraught question and to me always carries overtones (intended or not, conscious or not) of "you're actually Chinese, aren't you?" Not only that, but even after being told by the man that he had spoken in both Cantonese and Mandarin, my colleague continued to assert that she did not know what dialect he was speaking. BOTH! I wanted to shout. JUST LIKE HE TOLD YOU! Instead I said "sometimes my parents speak in a mixture of dialects, or switch between them. Cantonese and Hokkien." I also felt that I should say that I didn't really speak Cantonese. Just to manage expectations, you know.

She said it seemed to her that he was not that comfortable speaking with her in English and would I speak with him in Chinese and give him contact information for some organizations she had found that might help him (two API legal organizations in California).

Umm sure I said.

Did I want to make the call together at my desk or at her desk?

In fact my first feeling was that I didn't want to make the call together at all. I hate being watched as I speak Mandarin, whether by a speaker of Mandarin or not. I feel like my very identity as a Chinese person is under examination. Maybe, I wanted to say, you could just give me his number and I could call him in my own time, by myself. I didn't say that, though. Instead I said let's make the call in my office.

Before that, though, we had a series of meetings to attend. I was distracted throughout, rehearsing in my head my Mandarin vocabulary, unable to completely focus on the subject of the meetings. What would I say? How would I say it? How would I not appear completely "Americanized" (which is to say white, which is to say unable to fluently speak Mandarin) in front of this stranger and my colleague? In short - how would I preserve and defend my image and identity as an ethnically Chinese immigrant from an Asian country?

We prepared for the call, sitting together in my office. I suggested that it would probably be best if my colleague spoke first so he wouldn't have the experience of a complete stranger calling him seemingly out of the blue. Also I wanted to have a little time to read his accent and determine the various things one sometimes "read" in an accent - native dialect, class, fluency with English.

As I listened to the ringtone, my senses keened. Everything in the room came into sharp focus. Sounds were crisper and clearer, and time itself seemed to slow down. I was acutely aware of my colleague's expression, the information on my computer screen, the papers on my desk, the feel of my new t-shirt on my chest.

He picked up, and my colleague introduced herself as the person whom he had met in casual carpool. Then I introduced myself as Ming and said I was her colleague. What's your surname, he asked. Wong, I said (or Huang, since we were speaking Mandarin). I quickly transitioned into giving him the information my colleague had prepared, unable to really make small talk, and again, aware the whole time of my colleague watching and listening to me. I started out with a disused bicycle feeling. Wobbly, uncertain. It got a little better as his reactions to my speech seemed to be comprehension and some amount of attentiveness. When he told me a bit more about his situation, I was surprised by how much I understood. Will there be people at these organizations who speak Chinese, he asked. I told him I was pretty sure there would be. He ended the call by thanking us in Mandarin and English (overly profusely, I thought, but maybe that's an immigrant trait coming out. I'm actually sure I do the much same thing - being unreasonably grateful for the smallest and most incompetently rendered of favors).

After the call, my colleague said she had learned the words for "zero" and "five" (digits that were repeated in the phone numbers I gave him), and that she guessed the word for "Yes" was "dui." I explained that I didn't think there was a direct gloss for "yes" in Mandarin, and that there were at least three distinct words, "dui," "shi" and "hao" that conveyed different aspects of what the word "yes" conveyed in English. I then summarized what I had talked about with the man. We went back to our day. I was flushed, relieved. I felt I had passed. Passed as Chinese enough. At least for the day.