The Name and the Face

[lishesquex]

Amazing article by Juliana Qian on Chinese identity: The Name and the Face

Favorite bits:

I know what stories sell. Australian audiences have an insatiable appetite for the suffering of people of colour, for stories of violence and poverty, trauma and tragedy. But I came to this country on a Cathay Pacific plane. My childhood was suburban and ordinary. I had experiences of racism, of loss and shame, but always plenty of friends too. And the China I knew was largely peaceful and comfortable, despite real corruption, censorship and repression. My parents used to rush to the television whenever China was mentioned, but soon my father began to grumble that they were only interested in the dismal and catastrophic. SBS showed many horrific documentaries, few films, no comedies. As Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie says about representations of her country, ‘to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience … the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete’.

///

My generation was promised equality after assimilation. And for a while there I believed it: I read Blyton and Blume, and later Plath and Salinger. And I loved them as I should. I forgot Chinese word by word and let my tongue grow wooden. And I hardly noticed because I always had more to say to my friends than to my parents. I waited for strangers to stop asking where I came from, and they kept me waiting. I went to the place I didn’t remember that I’m supposed to have come from, I looked at my grandparents’ bookshelves and the gaps in their photo albums and I thought about culture, loss, change and time. When I was four an ocean crossed me. If it hadn’t, I still wouldn’t be in the same place I came from.

I got chills.

Comments

[jailbaitjello.livejournal.com]

Good article, and much of what she says applies to Chinese Americans and people of color here too.

Also... she's queer??

[lishesque.livejournal.com]

Totes queer. She's a friend, actually. Been a while since we interacted though. I've always found her writing to be incredibly articulate, bold and evocative.

[reiexnihilo.livejournal.com]

*to read*

[reiexnihilo.livejournal.com]

Well...read, mostly absorbed I think. Pretty interesting, but I have no pithy comments!

Is there anything else you'd mention apart from "chills"?

[lishesque.livejournal.com]

Just that the article expressed feelings that I didn't even know I had. Like, they were lurking around inside me, but she gave words to them. And when I read it, it was like oooh, that's the feeling I get when X happens and now I know why.

[tangledtale.livejournal.com]

Yeah, chills. I'm still trying to digest it. And you know foist it on everyone in the meantime. I already linked it to my coworker.

[lishesque.livejournal.com]

I am also doing the foisting. Finished "Unpolished Gem' last night, by the way. The ending was </3. You must read it so we can discuss it!

[(Anonymous)]

That's a great insight about the incompleteness of stereotypes, and having your experiences 'flattened'.