Category: 2024

These are some of the pieces of papers submitted by the 2024 cohort, with contributions from:

Emily Huynh
Aidan Lai
Vivian Lee
Patricia Li
Joshua Liu
Samantha Ma
Tim Miyashita
Michelle Wong
Donna Wu
Tiffany Yau

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A plea to Cantonese parents

beg of you to try your best to pass down the language to your kids.

Creator:
Tim Miyashita (he/him)

Regardless of how people perceive the current and future status of Cantonese in Hong Kong, it has always been an important goal for Hong Kong diasporic parents to ensure that their children will be able to maintain some level of proficiency in terms of Cantonese. Despite this ideal, many diasporic children end up growing up losing the ability to communicate in Cantonese, potentially leading to an inability to connect with older members in the family who do not speak English, and also an inability to participate in relevant cultural experiences. Sometimes this is a response to experiences of racism, sometimes this is because of pragmatic concerns of not wanting to go to Cantonese school, and sometimes parents simply lack the time to teach their children Cantonese properly themselves. Timothy’s impassioned plea for Cantonese-speaking parents to pass on their language to their children based on his personal experience is worth considering. What are some effective methods for Cantonese-speaking parents to pass down their language?

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Frozen splinters

“I feel like I’m in the middle between [a HKer] and [a Canadian].”

Creator:
Joshua Liu (he/him)

When we think about any given diasporic group, there is often a tendency to homogenize people’s mental representation of that group, and the Hong Kong diaspora is no exception to this either. In reality, there can be much disagreement (and agreement) amongst the Hong Kong diaspora on various issues, including something as fundamental as cultural identity. Joshua’s interviewees and his analysis clearly point out the varied nature experiences amongst the diaspora, and also point out the intergenerational schisms that exist within the community. This is especially apparent within churches that have been a prominent safe haven for many newcomers from Hong Kong by providing community and spiritual support. The older waves of migrants interact with numerous political issues differently than the younger wave of migrants, and they also adopt different cultural identities as well. Do you think that intergenerational differences are qualitatively different for diasporic populations, or all intergenerational differences the same?

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Milk tea, pineapple buns, egg tarts, satay beef, BBQ pork rice, baked rice, macaroni soups

“If you’ve ever eaten at a HK cafe in HK, you’ll know what I mean” (Liang, 2023)

Creator:
Michelle Wong 黃嘉敏

Food “from home” is such an effective way for people to connect with their heritage culture because food is not just about the process of eating it. It entails the flavours of home, the smells of home, and even the sounds of home. Eating food “From home” may even transport people back to the very scenes in which they had eaten that food. For folks in the Hong Kong diaspora, they seek various types of cultural assets in Canada so they can still have moments where they feel like they’re home. Nostalgia “hits one right in the feels,” as they say, and it gets triggered by all sorts of things – by food, by people, and by sights and sounds, among others. Michelle focuses on how night markets (夜市) and HK-style cafés (茶餐廳) serve as the trigger point for nostalgia and cultural connection for Hong Kong diaspora in Canada. What other cultural assets serve as similar trigger points for you?

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Can I call myself a Hong Konger?

[W]hat right do I, as a [Canadian-born Chinese], to say I am also a Hongkonger?

Creator:
Vivian Lee (she/her)

The identity label of “Hong Konger” is fraught with political and ideological implications. For some, access to this identity is simply migration and ancestral history. For others, access to it implies having had certain kinds of experiences. In particular, the idea of “Hong Konger” has become intimately tied to the 2019 Pro-Democracy protests, which has created significant contentions among Hong Kong diaspora due to their absence from the city during the height of the protests. Vivian’s work transports the reader through her mental struggle with this term, and her journey of figuring out whether or not she has the right to call herself a Hong Konger. She also links the label to linguistic and cultural knowledge, which is tied to various intersectional considerations in and of itself. Read through her work to see how she reconciles this conflict for herself – but understand that this may be different for other people. How differently can others reconcile this same identity confusion?

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Immigrant parenting practices

“My parents didn’t have the expectation of us studying to become doctors or lawyers, just a non-labour job (斯文工)…”

Creator:
Samantha Ma 馬煒文

Parents are ultimately humans who are trying their best to do something they have never done before, in a time period that they have never experienced before, within cultural forces that they have never had to understand before. Parents often parent based on how they were parented, meaning that they are often mimicking behaviours that were used in a different time, within different cultural forces. And when these parents are diasporic, these differences in time and culture become even more amplified. Samantha interviews her parents to get a sense of how they lived with their parents, and how they perceived culture to have played in how they were parented. In turn, Samantha explores how those experiences may or may not have affected how her parents parented her, particularly from the perspective of considering the impact of culture. How might parents and children reconcile with each other in terms of coming from vastly different cultural perspectives and assumptions?

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Sexuality and Migration

[L]iving in Canadian society as part of the LGBQ youth is by no means a smooth sailing journey…

Creator:
Patricia Li 李晴 (she/her)

Canada very successfully projects an image on the international stage as a welcoming and inclusive country where sexual and gender diversity are not just tolerated, but are accepted and appreciated. Patricia points out the fact that such an image is more idealism than reality – while there is much more safety associated with being an LGBQ youth in Canada relative to numerous places around the world, there is still much to be done to ensure that LGBQ youth can live authentic and fulfilling lives free from worries, fear, and uncertainty about their identities. She also folds in theoretical perspectives of acculturation to provide a more comprehensive perspective of the experiences of LGBQ Hong Kong diasporic youth. What can society and the Hong Kong diasporic community do to ensure that LGBQ youth are supported, accepted, and protected?

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

They lack feeling a sense of control over their own appearances, as their bodies are constantly subjected to outside influences about how they should look.

Creator:
Donna Wu 伍子颖

Humans are known to be a hypersocial species – we have a fundamental need for affiliation (i.e. being around others and existing in a social space), for better or for worse. When thinking about it being “for the better”, it means we can cooperate/coordinate with others to divide up tasks, allowing our species to survive. We can also rely on each other to provide support so that we don’t need to face our problems alone. When thinking about it being “for the worse”, though, it means that we are often subjected to others’ opinions and perspectives that may lead to negative emotions and experiences on our part. For example, existing means being subject to various forms of influence, including explicit and implicit messages about what counts as “attractive”. For Asian diaspora (including those from the Hong Kong diaspora), this often means being caught between different messages about attractiveness – mainstream ones in Canada, and prominent ones from their heritage cultures. Donna explores these different norms of attractiveness, and traces the various ways in which these norms may have a psychological impact on diasporic folks. How should one navigate through these messages about attractiveness?

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Defining the Hong Kong Canadian

In our present time, we now see the birth of a new “Hong Kong Canadian” identity from the ashes of a now-dead Cantonese-dominated “Chinese Canadian” identity.

Creator:
Aidan Lai 黎至正 (he/him)

One of the most elusive acts we can do as diaspora is defining our cultural identity – we have to look backwards into history and around us in the present to figure out the numerous alternatives from which we can choose. And when many alternatives are inherently political and controversial, deciding on alternatives becomes extremely problematic and difficult. In the case of Aidan’s work, he takes this problem to another level by proposing a future-oriented perspective of cultural identity. In thinking about what is a “Hong Kong Canadian,” we can look to the migration history of people from Hong Kong to Canada. We can also see how the current group of Hong Kong migrants have shaped the existing definition of Hong Kong Canadians. How can we think about a new and future definition of Hong Kong Canadians by thinking about who future generations of Hong Kong migrants will be, and what the future generations of Hong Kong migrants will be like?

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Recon”Net”ting

These forms…not only bridge geographical distance…but [act] as archival sites for deeper historical education.

Creator:
Tiffany Yau 丘苑婷 (she/her)

When considering diasporic studies, it isn’t enough that we consider first generation diaspora – second generation+ diaspora are a significant and oft-overlooked part of the population (both in terms of media representation consideration, and in academic interest). While cultural identity formation and maintenance is (relatively more) straightforward for first generation diaspora, second generation+ diaspora tend to have more trouble and confusion in this arena. By having their existence and experiences ignored by mainstream media, they feel that the mainstream culture has invisibilized them, affecting their self-regard and feelings of belonging. At the same time, they might also have trouble connecting with their heritage culture due to lack of access to heritage cultural products (e.g. pop culture, heritage media). Tiffany breaks down how improving cultural representation and diversity in mainstream media has helped bridge some gaps between multigenerational diaspora and the mainstream culture, and how the internet (replete with its convenient access of heritage cultural media from “back home”) has been a boon for these same diaspora trying to connect with their heritage culture. What avenues do you go through to connect with your culture?

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Reimagined: Chinese Weekend School

How can we restructure weekend Chinese school so that it will allow the students to develop, gain, and maintain Cantonese proficiency?

Creator:
Emily Huynh 黄愛怡 (she/her)

For those who had to give up 3 hours of their Saturdays as children so they can be sent over to school and learn a Sinitic language (likely Cantonese, Mandarin, or both), the vast majority will report how much they hated it because they were stuck in a classroom while their friends were sleeping, playing, watching movies, hanging out, doing anything other than being in school after already having spent 5 days at school earlier in the week. It also doesn’t help that these schools follow a highly rigid educational format based heavily on memorization and dictation, with little concern for learners’ experience and whether or not those traditional educational styles are suitable for diasporic children. At the same time, many diasporic adults also report that they either are thankful for having retained their heritage language, or wish that they had been better able to retain their heritage language. This highlights the importance of heritage language proficiency retention among diasporic speakers, and the need to reconcile this need with the pragmatic challenges of diasporic childhood language education. Emily presents a series of learning plans, supported by academic sources, to try to make the Cantonese-learning experience much more enjoyable than the current traditional approach. If you were a child learning Cantonese, would you have found this helpful?

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