The alienated Chineseness in ME

At the potential opportunity of moving to China once again in the near future, I am suddenly experiencing moments of trepidation and fear. Friends to whom i have admitted this do not understand my hesitation.

“Why, it’s only short term,” they say. “It’s not like you have never done it before!”

Yes yes, all the above is true. But to my fellow Asian brothers and sisters who have never lived in the land of our ancestors before, I say, “Life is not always that easy.”

To quote a youtube video entitled “Being an overseas Asian in China”, a Chinese-looking foreigner is just something most Chinese people aren’t used to yet. China is probably the most homogenous multicultural place that exists, where identity is based on ethnicity and not nationality.

We are often asked the following questions:

Why is your English so good?

Why did you come back?

Why did your parents / grandparents leave China?

Five years ago just as I was about to leave Beijing, I wrote a piece entitled “Life of an Alien in Beijing”, summing up my three-year stint in the capital of the Middle Kingdom where I felt strangely at home as a descendent of the Chinese diaspora.

Five years later, I returned to Beijing for the first time in April this year and a second in November. As any foreigner who has left the metropolis will say, “Oh my, I can’t believe how much of this city has changed”, I too was pleasantly surprised to find pockets of “bourgeois” moments appearing in Beijing.

Discreet, tasteful and stylish traditional teahouses, spas, and artisan coffee places have sprung up in the hidden and endless hutongs which have escaped the fate of being “chai(d)”. Small and authentic french patisseries (as opposed to the huge factory-like franchise chains) have started  blooming to cater to the discerning (and growing) middle class, in a city where there used to be a glaring gap between the upper strata and the populace (老百姓 as we say in Mandarin).

To a Chinese-looking but totally westernised person like me (otherwise known as a banana in my part of the world), a gentrified Beijing is like a dream come true. It makes the city “livable” whilst the capital retains its Chineseness in other parts of town. The lack of a familiar whiff of coffee in the air, the absence of multi-grain french bread and faithful bags of Twinnings tea at any local supermarket and the inability to recognise the made-in-China brands of potato chips at any 7-Eleven, were but a few of the reasons why I (like many expatriates living in Beijing) were flying regularly to Hong Kong for a breath of fresh air, both in the literal and figurative sense of the term.

The above is but one side of the coin. As my Beijinger friends would say, “this city is beginning to lose its soul”. Hutongs are being plagued by a disease called “Globalisation”! While the external structure remains intact, the once-residential quarters have now been stripped of the daily comings and goings of elderly folk trotting up and down the alleys to the common bathrooms located at the end of the street, the sound of kids kicking up jianzi in the air, giggling as the shuttlecock sometimes flies over to a neighbouring courtyard.

Instead, throngs of foreigners and tourists are now a common sight paying pilgrimage to the numerous cafes and restaurants which have made it to the pedestals of (the credible and dependable) Tripadvisor. A multitude of accents and (un)recognisable tongues now fill the air, leaving the local Beijinger at a loss in a place once thought to be one of the most distinctive aspects of life in the royal capital or “Huang Cheng”（皇城）.

Having grown up in a country where most of our cultural heritage has been torn down, I will adopt the Ah Q mentality to say, “at least the shell remains”. Yet if one were to think deeper, perhaps the external appearance is merely skin deep and the inner beauty is really the essence of all existence.

Take a banana like myself for instance – my Chinese-looking appearance is simply deceiving. My (sometimes) black-and-white decision-making processes as well as exuberant expression for the importance of independent and individualistic thinking, are all but the result of years of upbringing on the sunny island of Singapore, a 100% product of British colonisation and good ‘ole American TV.

Despite my Westernised roots, I do admit to have witnessed a certain change in the way I carry myself during this “return” trip to Beijing, a second attempt at integrating (but not assimilating) into the post-modern Confucianist-at-heart society of Beijing.

Back in the days, I used to deeply resent the practice of belittling oneself whilst elevating the status of others by adding the suffixes of 姐 (sister), 哥 (brother) or 总 (Director) behind their names. More importantly, I abhor the idea of addressing myself as “Xiao Shen”  (小沈）to indicate my youth and/or junior status. Why in the world is it necessary for me to show respect to others at the expense of my self dignity?

Yet I found myself unconsciously altering the way I addressed a Chinese colleague, shortly after I met her for the first time this year.  I naturally added a suffix in reverence of her age and seniority. When i caught myself doing that, I realised that this is one of those things that comes to one naturally when one truly respects another person.

Shortly after, I found myself being fixated at others’ teacups and automatically attributing myself the role of a tea-lady during my multiple lunches and dinners where i was building the famous “guanxi” (关系）i.e. networking relationships. I realised that I was refilling tea cups of senior work acquaintances out of pure respect and reverence once again.

Last but not least, I started listening to myself as I speak and I detected long periods of silence as I went into deep thought and reflection during a conversation, much like my Chinese compatriots. I have always found these lapses of silence unbearable as I am perpetually unable to tell if the person is getting upset or merely thinking? These moments of “black hole silence” are naturally non-existent in the western world and therefore incomprehensible to the “me” of before, a banana.

I started asking myself the rhetorical question of WHY? Why would anyone so opposed to the concept and principle of self-belittlement naturally adopt the practice?

My answer to myself is the following: these practices were established by a culture which places great importance on ceremonial expressions of respect and reverence, where physical signs of affection are not the norme. Even though many Chinese people have recently started to adopt the western practice of a hug or “bao bao” (抱抱), the form it has taken differs greatly from the kind of bear hug that i am accustomed to in Singapore. At best, the Chinese “baobao” is merely a brush of the material enveloping two bodies in a fleeting second.

I then had another thought of horror. Could it be that I am starting to think like a Chinese? To this day, I am still not sure of who I am and what I have become. Yet it would seem that I am indeed beginning to understand the depth of the Chinese culture and society.

As I explore further into the intricate differences between the East and West, I would even challenge the numerous superficial interpretations of the West. Take “guanxi” for instance – I used to loosely translate it as relationships or networking. But when I think deeper, it is much more than just getting along well with a certain person. Generally strengthened over the dinner table, I would say that “guanxi” is also a recognition of calibre and common work principles and ethics, as well as the acknowledgement of mutual trust and respect all born out of conversation topics carefully placed during the span of one meal.

The value of this “guanxi” comes to play when one needs help either in a professional or personal setting. In reality, it is an act of camaraderie, much like the heroic acts of loyalty in the past, which pretty much defies the boundaries of the professional setting in the modern and western world.

This brings me to another aspect of the Chinese culture that I have difficulty understanding – the amplitude and depth of feelings attributed to a country, a company and/or a product etc. As a westernised Asian brought up on rational black and white logic, I stand by the fact that the emotion one experiences greatly depends on the subject matter. How can anyone in the right mind, equate the love for one’s motherland to the loyalty for an commercial organisation or the affection one has for a corporate product for instance?

A Chinese friend put things in perspective for me: “You must look beyond the subject matter, which in itself is irrelevant,” she says. When one has been treated with respect in an organisation in which he/she has served for a good number of years, that entity becomes a home, colleagues are like family and the products one sells represents livelihood.

It is important to remember that the lines are blurred between professional and personal spheres for the Chinese, which is why one can always count on a Chinese colleague even outside of working hours compared to the typical western-born individual for whom work ends at 6pm sharp.

Perhaps it is due to this absence of separation between work and personal life that one can feel as much passion for the country as for the workplace, and be as close to colleagues as one is to personal friends. The clear distinction of these two groups of individuals is apparent once again only with western minded individuals.

As I grow older, I begin to better appreciate the Chinese culture which to me is subtle and deep yet painfully ceremonial with seemingly superficial rituals. To borrow the name of a French movie, perhaps it be best described as the Chinese Puzzle.

There is (probably) no right or wrong between cultures. As a Singaporean Chinese, I am naturally caught (for good) between the East and the West, for the better or for the worst.

To end with the black and white conclusion made by Ruyard Kipling back in the late 19th century “East is East, West is West and never shall the twain meet.”

But maybe, just perhaps, there is a grey area after all?