chinatown
i only seem to spend time here with my family, who have come from far away to eat fascimiles of our food culture.
it's curious to think how my most recent foray into the world of employment is in a role which in a sense foregrounds (and dare i say capitalises upon) something with which i have always had difficulty coming to terms with -- my cultural and racial identity.
as a small child, i spoke both cantonese and english. growing up, i went to an english-teaching school, and so my chinese fell by the wayside. now, i can converse in cantonese without a problem, but in reading and writing i can recognise random handful of characters (noticing the chinese subtitles whilst watching english-language tv in hong kong, deducing what means hwat) and write an even smaller handful (the three i am most versed in are those which constitute my name). this put me in a somehwat vexed position of feeling simultaneously privileged (some chinese kids i mixed with whilst growing up were in awe of my accent, my pronunciation) and out of place (my mother considers me to be her least culturally chinese child of the three). then, there was boarding school, chubby and aged thirteen. existing in a country where, by contrast, i looked different from the norm, but more confusingly was confronted with a culture which was both familiar and unfamiliar. and then the whole thing was repeated once i started boarding school, albeit from a different angle. the culture shock of the familiar & unfamiliar of britain (more on this term later, perhaps), for example, and a whole multitude of complications i am not going to tease out here.
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people i met on the job:
a nigerian scientists who discussed his country with me, and chinese construction workers there -- how overall he thinks the chinese are good people, but some take advantage of their fellow countrymen. advertising well-paid waitress jobs to women, who are then made sex slaves. (this article is what reminded me to complete this post).
a christian iraqis, friendly with a lovely smile. interestingly, (or perhaps not interestingly, although it was a surprise to me nonetheless) he seemed to get on best with other middle eastern students
iraqi kurds, who, by virtue of the unviersity's ties with the kurdish government in iraq, were in large numbers. some eager, some playful. it's hard to sum up a group & the purpose of my role was a way to encourage the students not to stick in their groups. they got better at mixing, towards the end, and it made my heart glad to see it, but i can understand to some extent why initially they want to stick to their 'own'.
thai students, many of whom seemed rather shy, soft-spoken. there was one one girl who i think felt a bit out of place with the culture.
a chilean, with the best accent, a beard, and another lovely lovely smile.
a gay frenchman from marseilles. feeling not at home in his home country, ready to explore, find & make homes.
chinese students from the mainland, some of whom fit the stereotype.
a few students from the south of china, meaning they speak cantonese, as i do. i refuse to converse with them in chinese, claiming that the purpose of their time here is to 'practice their english'. this is true, but there is some embarassment on my part too.
a few japanese students, one of whom apparently likes to hear cantonese, enjoys the cadences. they are by and large charming, and rather japanese, without being, well, too typically japanese.
taiwanese students, with whom i have discussed their cultural and national identity. how different do they see themselves from the mainland chinese? later in the office i learn one student was upset to have been classed as 'chinese' by the administration, rather than taiwanese. this reminded me of a conversation i once had in a youth hostel with a man in his fifties, who didn't such political & cultural conflations; i didn't have the patience to eplain. i will always say i'm from hong kong but yes, i am chinese. different political situation, though.
a well-dressed frenchman, elegant and always suited. he probably could be a model. a german guy who looks like he is a model. a german girl whose friendliness and curly hair reminded me of an old friend.
a lady from tanzania, who was a nurse in her own country. she spoke to me about how beautiful the cities are (comparsions in infrastructure), her hometime, her life there. she has a sister here, in milton keynes, who she went to meet. she wants to bring her family here because life is good.
a lot of the chinese students, by comparsion, are here to study. to capitalise on the cultural cache of a british degree.
this is what i mean when i refer to classic and contemporary immigration. ultimately, immigration is almost always related to wanting a better life - whether it be to flee persecution, or simply studying abroad to get a better job at home. this is of course not to say that the two are equivalent, although they are comparable in a strange sense. that is why this post is called 'classic' and 'contemporary'. i don't know how alright it is, to refer to 'classic' immigration (people emigrating for a better material life) and 'contemporary' immigration (people emigrating for a better cultural life, or rather, cultural capital in bourdieu's sense?) . the differences here are important ways important, but equally so how the distinction in some respects seems a bit blurred by virtue of moving countries being a solution. i don't know if i am making sense here. out of practice.
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