Experiencing different places can challenge our perspectives and cause us to reassess meaning. We return with new stories and new realizations as well as a desire to share the beauty of the places visited. Reflecting on the three weeks I spent in southern China, the following themes defined my experiences:
Concrete Connections
I have always felt grounded in New York City. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this sense of rootedness is connected to an extended network of people, foods, traditions, and institutions that were part of growing up in Chinatown. I experienced a similar sense of being at home in Toishan. I was physically immersed in the places that held the memories my family members had talked about in stories. I spent time with extended family who spoke in familiar ways and cooked foods I ate as a child. In my dad’s village, I learned how he maintained ongoing connections to the village, even though he only lived there for a couple of years as a young boy. I touched heirlooms left in my mom’s ancestral house before family members migrated to North America and built new lives in distant lands.
Indigeneity
Toishan is the one place in the world where I can claim an indigenous link. Both of my parents were born in Toishan county, and I can trace my lineage twenty-six generations (about 800 years) to the region on my dad’s side. Being where my parents, grandparents, and great, great grandparents were born, gave me a more nuanced understanding of rootedness. As a child I remember observing Chinese American acquaintances who asked my parents where they were from within Toishan, seemingly trying to figure out if there was a common geographical origin. After spending time in Toishan, I can see why there was such an emphasis on geography. I witnessed how deeply my ancestral villages were connected to the land and how much the land was part of the livelihoods of villagers. The geography dictated how people moved and related to one another.
The importance of place is not a new concept for me; it is one of the frameworks I apply to my work as an educator. But my own livelihood and sense of being has always existed within an urban setting. I did not fully appreciate the extent my family relied on the natural environment until I was standing in one of the village rice fields within walking distance from my ancestral house during harvest. When my parents immigrated, they had to adapt to environments so different from what was familiar to them.
Overseas Anti-Chinese Policies and Legislation
Seeing first hand the level of investments in the hometowns of overseas Chinese during the late 19th and early 20th centuries framed the impact of international policies and legislation on the Pearl River Delta region in a new light. After visiting places such as the Kaiping diaolous and the Mei Family Grand Courtyard, I wondered how many of these places were responses to the anti-Chinese sentiment and legislation in North and South America, when many overseas Chinese had very little opportunity of gaining citizenship and raising families in their adopted countries and therefore invested in their home villages instead. I have understood how anti-Chinese legislation has impacted people in the United States but had never considered how it may have influenced China as well.
Sense of identity that is ever-evolving
When I first started studying Mandarin in college, I learned how to say my country of origin: 我是美国人 - I am an American. I embraced the term because (just like in English) I was often asked in Mandarin, “Where are you really from?”. In response, I often doubled down on my American identity: 我真的是美国人.
It was not until much later that I started to hear terms in Mandarin that represented the Chinese diaspora, phrases such as…
华侨 Huáqiáo—Chinese nationals residing abroad
华人 Huárén—those who locate their cultural origins in China but are politically oriented towards their adopted countries
华裔 Huáyì—those who are well integrated into the local society and seen as ethnically Chinese
I recently started studying Mandarin again, and we practiced introducing ourselves in one of the first sessions. Twenty-five years ago, I only knew how to describe myself as an American but I have since found language that better represents who I am: 华裔美国人 - Huáyì měiguó rén—Chinese American.
As a Chinese American, I have inherited a struggle to belong. Part of this struggle involves an ongoing investigation of my identity and its cultural tensions and contradictions. While the initial intention of this trip was to honor my family legacy, the insights gained have helped me to embrace the fullness of my place in the world.
For many years, I’ve focused only on the part of my identity associated with North American stories. My family villages were distant abstractions, more ideas than actual places. I left southern China with a firmer understanding of my transnational identity that of being connected to several places at once, beyond borders. This understanding has come with an underlying sense of interconnectedness that feels especially appropriate for these times. ■