We, as Dimsum readers, all share an identity - a certain "Chineseness" - irrefutable for some, but much more elusive for others. However, the meaning of this identity is becoming increasingly problematical in a post-modern era when globalization is blurring national boundaries and rapid information transfer is highlighting regional differences within countries.

The concept of identity is increasingly being questioned, deconstructed and closely examined by scholars in recent years, which led to a rethinking of identity's meaning to individuals and societies. The Wellcome Trust is currently hosting an exhibition exploring identity, and for the new collection's accompanying event, has collaborated with the Chinese Arts Centre to host the China Symposium, which explores the essence of Chinese identity through lectures, discussions and performances. Below is a summary of key issues discussed at the event.

Art, Migration and the Complexity of Belonging
Although nationality and race are social constructs, migrants are ultimately bonded to their countries of ethnic origin in complex and often unexpected ways. Diana Yeh, a Visiting Lecturer at University of East London, explored this idea by narrating the little known stories of artist and writers of Chinese descent in Britain and how their lives and works challenged our commonsense ideas about Chinese identity and belonging.

She firstly introduced Hsiung Shih-I (1902 - 1911), a Chinese writer who initially struggled to gain recognition in Britain but eventually rose to fame 1935 by adapting the popular Chinese story Lady Precious Stream into a West End play, which ran for almost 1000 nights.

In Lady Precious Stream, a princess ran away with a poor boy, who subsequently went to war and married the enemy's king's daughter. 18 years later, he reunited with his original wife, who was thrilled to see him again, but died shortly after. Her innocence and pious devotion to her husband embodied an element of Chineseness which fulfilled the West's expectation of China and allowed Hsiung to gain acceptance within his British community.

But the Chinese family value constructed through art and literature such as Lady Precious Stream has far larger significance. In the after-mass of the WWII when Britain tried to reconstruct its fragmented society, it publicized the harmonious image of the Chinese family as a model for imitation. In 1946, the magazine Good Housekeeping wrote an article titled "The Happy Hsiungs" with idealistic family photos captioned "Off to do Some Gardening" and "Reading is a Favorite Occupation" as if such life reflects the way Chinese family works. Little do they know the harsh conditions the Hsiungs had to endure when they initially migrated to Britain.

It subtly revealed the postcolonial fantasy of Chineseness invading Britain and reflected the way second generation migrants empowered themselves through humour. Possessing a strongly hybridized Chinese identity, Key questioned if Chinese people are essentially the same in his 1997 work Yellow Peril, which used hundreds of soy source bottles to represent the way Chinese are flooding into the British boarder, illustrating Britain's absurd fear of Chinese immigrants invading and parodied the mentality that all Chinese look the same.

Post-colonial scholars have long studied the danger of performing "the other", for that when artists of Chinese descent are encouraged to create particularly Chinese rather than mainstream works as the only way of gaining acceptance, they contribute to the stereotyping of Chinese, with the result being viewers' loss of genuine interest over works as individual art pieces. However, amongst the audience was an artist who admitted that despite having resided in a number of different countries, and unable to speak Chinese, each time she starts painting after a period of rest, some element of her Chineseness gives her strength and inspiration.

Wartime and Identity in Modern China
Whereas the Chinese identity of migrants is questioned on a global scale, the identity of Chinese within China too is changing as the truth of the war years unfolds itself. Modern Chinese identity has been shaped by the experience of repeated conflict and, in particular, the fight against Japan in the 1930s-40s. Rana Mitter, an Oxford Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China discussed the significant contribution of the Kuomintang (KMT) in Chongqing in this war - a fact unacknowledged for 40 years during the Communist Party's rule.

Mitter began his lecture with the front cover image of a TV series (杭战陪都) showing famous buildings including Big Ben, US Capitol and another monumental construction. He asked the audience if anyone recognizes this less familiar construction, but no-one did. He then explained that it was a monument for the Sino-Japan war in Chongqing where the leaders of KMT resided and played the dominant role in fighting the Japanese. At the time, constant bombing of Chongqing forced local residents to be constantly on the move, which changed the fundamental way of life for those who have resided in the same places for decades. The lack of secure shelter which made it crucial for people to permanently live in factories became the starting point of the Communist concept of the "danwei" (workplace), which defined people's economic and social lives because one's work place under the communist regime dictates all aspects of one's life, including the distribution of houses.

Apart from the external threat of bombing, Chongqing suffered a large influx of refugees, creating strain on resources and generating more demand on people to unite around the state - another characteristics that significantly shaped the Chinese mentality. In comparison, cities like Shanghai and Nanking experienced a bitter resentment towards the war, and not national unity.

However, after 1945, the KMT became weak and corrupt, and when the Communist Party rose to power in 1949, KMT's contribution towards the fight against the Japanese was ignored in propaganda, children's text books and museums, resulting a common belief that the Chinese identity originated from the ideologies of the Communist Party. It was not until the 80s when censorship became less strict, that local TV channels and books (such as 一个人的抗战 and 川人大抗战) started revealing the historical truth of KMT's role in the war. In the 21st century, China is trying to play an active role in the international community, which made it question its own identity more and more. Mitter believes that to objectively present one's national history is a sign of responsibility, and, as China projects its image as a responsible superpower on the world stage, it must build up an identity through telling the historical truth.

Mitter's talk stimulated much discussion amongst the audience, at which point someone asked the question of the "Han Jian" (Chinese who collaborated with the Japanese during the war), because his mother once told him "this phenomenon could only happen in China, in other words, it couldn't have been the other way round". In response, Mitter gave an interesting answer - that by collaborating, Han Jian actually introduced relative peace for the common people. He believes that many aspects of the war, such as the question of Han Jian, still require further scholarly attention, and that China cannot confidently establish its identity without completely coming to terms with its history.

Eating Qi: Food, identity and inheritance in China
Although Chinese identity is evolving through historical studies and migration, certain elements change very little. Vivienne Lo, a Medicine Lecturer at UCL, shared her insight into the concept of health in the Chinese identity.

Qi is the energy that human seeks from nature. Medically, it is a power that nourishes one's soul and body. It is invisible, as its Chinese character (气) suggests, and is considered a form of transcendence, to be gained through food, exercise and the practice of rituals. The historical medic Sun Simiao (孙思邈) pioneered in the study of the relationship between food, medicine and disease, and laid the foundational work for the study of Qi.

Chinese food, exercise and medicine are increasingly adapting to our modern society. For example, when people traditionally go in groups to pick wild plants as food, the nutrition does not necessarily come from the food but the harmony of eating together in groups. Nowadays sharing food with family and friends is an important aspect of the Chinese identity, which essentially rests on the same idea. Such ideologies so richly embedded in the Chinese culture will continue to shape the Chinese identity despite specific practices' evolution over time

Immediately afterwards, she asked her friends to translate, and was given partial versions by several people, explaining that the boy was speaking about rather boring subjects. She believed this unquestioningly until a week later, someone told her, "by the way, you know that boy you were speaking to? He talked to you with the language and tense in Chinese as if he was addressing a servant."

This revelation shocked her, and made her think about the reliability of any facts she accepts. I believe that this story is particularly relevant to the process of questioning identity for that no facts we know can be taken as absolute and that no viewpoints we hold can definitely remain unchanged, because knowledge and beliefs are constantly transformed through interpretations. One needs to be open to different possibilities and constantly question the nature of knowledge, as this is the only way to correctly explore our Chinese identity in a global and cosmopolitan world.

Cecily Liu 

 

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Anonymous - thanks Posted 11:23 on 13 March 2010 Many thanks for the reporting this event which I would of like to attend. This is probably the only place where it is reviewed so a massive plus for Dimsum!!! I use to come to the lame postmodern conclusion that all this identity business all ends up in a kind of every-thing-goes relativism but after more caffe latte and Gitanes I think nature the importance of hidden power relations and language add to the complex mix. I give my indulgent speel some other time. Reply | Quote

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