28-yr old nocturnal over@nal geekette Malaysian.
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The Chinese Dilemma
In my research for the travel television programs I had done recently, along with basic readings of the history of the Philippines and Australia, I've begun to find an amazing common denominator of discrimination towards the Chinese. In Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and as I have just discovered, in Australia too, have the Chinese been utterly ousted through reasons of jealousy.
First, colonialism would allow and invite Chinese tradesmen or labourers to work in colonised countries all over the world. Then somehow the local migrants would grow jealous of them and would either cause riots or create immigration laws to forbid their propagation in that new land. Does this mean that the Chinese are doing something right and are obviously smarter than the colonisers?
Could their trade successes be attributed to their survivalist attitude? Or could the fact that their money-driven idealism and successes that stem from it be the envy of other cultures? Or maybe the hard core fact that while the world has reached 6 billion in population, more than 1/5 is Chinese is enough to make the other races feel threatened?
The Philippines, during the Spanish era, had racial riots against the Chinese because they found them to be successful tradesmen. Thus deciding they were no longer welcomed in the Philippines, unless they assimilated. Hence the Tsinoys. Indonesia forced their Chinese to assimilate by enforcing Anti-Chinese legislation forcing them to adopt Indonesian-sounding names, closed down Chinese schools and publications, and disallowed the use of the Chinese language in any medium. While in Australia, I've just discovered the Lambing Flat Riots during the gold mining era. Sentiments which led to their restrictive immigration acts.
The new Federal Parliament, as one of its first pieces of legislation, passed the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 to "place certain restrictions on immigration and... for the removal... of prohibited immigrants". The act drew on similar legislation in South Africa. Edmund Barton, the (first Australian) prime minister, argued in support of the Bill with the following statement: "The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of the Englishman and the Chinaman."While I understand completely that the Chinese with their gambling and gangsterism aren't exactly your most ideal neighbours, and neither does their contemporary embrace of communism helps, but why is this cause to vilify them, particularly when their Western counterpart have their own evils and declare human rights for all?
~White Australia Policy, extracted from Wikipedia
The reason I'm pointing all this out is not because I'm outraged at the injustices put upon the Chinese - because I believe that the Chinese themselves have suffered a great deal from their own government and emperors of their time, hence forcing them to become permanent refugees and wandering migrants the world over. I write this because I question the little bit of Chinese roots I have. I have no Chinese pride whatsoever and know nothing of the race or culture. Instead, I embrace a religion that is professed by Western civilization, speak a language passed on by colonizers, and have adopted Western philosophical thinking and structure. Hence, the only bit of Chinese I carry in me is my surname. I am shamed by my own fellow men for not being able to speak any dialect, or not having a Chinese name. But being able to understand why they are being shunned would at least make me question, should there be an ounce of pride in me for being part Chinese? That is my Chinese dilemma.
Comments
Ah, the chinese disapora.
If there is one word that can be used to describe the early chinese migrants, resillient is the word. Of course, there has been so much injustice done in the past; even now the lackeys at UMNO are still calling for the non bumiputras to leave the land that has been their only home for generations.
Yet we presevere.I think it's laudable for you to be interested in whatever little chinese roots that you have. Being chinese and having pride is not just only about eating steamboat and listening to chinese songs. It is about understanding the past and being a proud descendent for a long line of resillient adventurers, travelling the world without fear and having the ability to rise again no matter how many times they have been trampled upon.
this is starting to sound very preachy-racist like so I shall stop:).
sourrain | April 11, 2007 6:35 PM
The white Australia policy was for all non-white races. Lets face it, it was racism at it's worst - even the comment by Barton shows that, the English at that time owned half the world and felt they were the most 'Superior Race' in the world. Chinese being successful [or any other race for that matter] was a slap in the face.
But, if you have a good look at history, you'll find that most people [not all] have always tried to curtail other people from immigrating into their areas. Even peaceful migration of one group into anothe area often results in bloodshed, wars etc. Such as the Celtic tribes that tried migrating through Europe running a foul of any other race who they happened to run into.
There tends to be a general 'Fear of Strangers' built into the human psyche that causes a lot of racists etc to put people into an 'Us and Them' category.
Thus, success of any kind by an 'intruding' race will often be greeted by some sort of backlash in order to try to make the group called 'Us' look better than the group called 'Them'.
It's one of the reasons there are so many ancient stories where the equate the 'Them' peoples success in anything to witch craft, as nobody wanted to admit that maybe, just maybe the 'Them' group of people were really better than them at something ... therefore the only explanation was they were 'demons' or 'possessed' or something.
It's interesting to read about what a lot of the Japanese did as properganda against the 'Western Devils' who had just came to trade etc in Japan.
One piece I remember reading was where they told women that having a 'white mans baby' woudl cause the baby to be born with a full beard and hair all over it's body like an ape. lol
If you read about Hong Kong etc, you'll also see a lot of resentment from the Chinese towards the foriegn English devils.
Even at work in Sydney the Chinese guys often called me a 'Foriegn Devil' and sometimes appologised for it, as they'd say it was 'just a term' now. lol It didn't offend me. lol
But, point I'm trying to make is, anyone who travels will often find themselves at the pointy end of the stick when they try to settle elsewhere. [Unless they happen to settle as a Majority on someone elses land - such as the English settling in Australia and the Europeans settling in the Americas!].
Dabido (Teflon) | April 12, 2007 6:08 PM
Find a book called "The Chinese Dilemma" by Ye Lin-Sheng.
Be enlighten to how lucky you are in Malaysia, my fellow Malaysian Chinese.
H4RRY | May 4, 2007 7:20 PM
I agreed with you that chinese are always discriminated because of its race and its success. Thanks for voicing out
LOW | May 12, 2007 12:58 AM