1 March 2001
Dennis Ng

Being a British-Born-Chinese raised in such a small town made it easy to forget my ethnic origin as a growing child. There were only two other non-white families in the community, and I remember thinking how they stood out when they were just walking down the high street. Sometimes I would get the same feeling looking into the mirror in the morning. How Chinese was I really?

Summer vacations to spend time with the extended family abroad often left me with hours of pretending to understand the Cantonese language, which regretfully, I have not spent the time to learn yet. Other than that, and the occasional name-calling by kids and drunken people, I had few reminders of my ethnicity. I became assimilated by the society and culture I was immersed in. I was British: I supported England during World Cup season, Great Britain for the Olympics and the only national anthem I know the words to are for 'God Save Our Queen'' (But only the first verse.)

Moving out of the middle-class English rural district into university, the culture change hit me face-on. Although the value-driven, late-night student culture was easy enough to adapt to, I soon realised that my social group consisted entirely of Welsh, Scots and Irish - I was uncomfortable. I am no xenophobe and have no problems interpreting the various accents; what shocked me was their degree of patriotism. Not even half-a-reason (a couple of pints usually), and they would soon be sketching red dragons and singing their own national anthems. (They even knew all the words.) I felt slightly intimidated and I wanted a part of the whole thing. I couldn't help but feel that I had been missing something all this time: my own Chinese identity.

In an attempt to rectify the situation, I looked up information about the university Chinese society and went along to one of their social events. The night I chose happened to be a traditional-style group punt down the river. The experience was unusual. Performing a typically very English ritual whilst being surrounded by people talking Mandarin (including a couple of girls who seemed to be trying to appear like schoolgirls) must have been one of the stranger moments of university life for me. I cannot even guess what the others on the boat might have been talking about. I was not totally bored though: someone had brought a bamboo flute along to fill out the airwaves, but even the notes he was using sounded very foreign and unfamiliar to me. I felt like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Alienated.

Recently I was invited to a Chinese New Year party in London. Seeing as I was to be in the area at the time anyway, I went along. It was another odd concept for me to see so many English celebrating the largest Chinese festival of the year; perhaps not surprising since amongst the hosts were a couple of BBC's with friends of all nationalities. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time as did the others present, but more importantly, I felt comfortable. There was no longer any language barrier, and company for the evening shared ethnic origin as well as cultural upbringing.

So far, I'd spent time attempting to determine whether I was British or merely a Chinese who was brought up in a different environment. It's only now that I'm learning that British-Born-Chinese possess a whole culture of their own, procuring ideas and traditions from both of the parent nationalities whilst also developing an individual identity. This dual relationship can allow us to connect with two sets of populations but as BBC's we share even more in common. We get to mock the British for their bland taste in food and beat them at video games. We sneer at the Chinese for their rhino-horn-remedy-for-all-known-ailments and try to remain calm in restaurants at bill-times. Together, we head out of the takeaways and into the computing industry, sharing the best one-line quips to use against the phrase, 'ching chong Chinaman' as we go. Surely it's only a matter of time until we have our own anthem to sing. One that we know all the words to.