Under Your Skin—Going Bananas: Multiple Identities Forum
Following 2005’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Banana Conference, this year’s Going Bananas: Multiple Identities Forum set out to offer a more in-depth look at Chinese identities in the New Zealand environment, the complexity of these identities, sense of belonging and a burgeoning cultural-creative voice. Chinese-Malaysian Kiwi EVELYN KIING was in attendance.
THE Going Bananas: Multiple Identities Forum was my first event of its kind, dealing specifically with Chinese identities in multicultural New Zealand. The Banana concept is a slight throw-off for the wider community who still don’t know what it means but I thought, surely this conference isn’t about being a Banana.
The first “Living with Multiple Identities” section set the right mood with four fantastic speakers sharing their personal stories of their upbringing and their struggles of living between different cultures. Jenny Lee, of Chinese and Maori descent, spoke about her two grandmothers who helped nurture a culturally balanced life by encouraging her involvement in Maori and Chinese activities. She described that it wasn’t hard to be who she was at home but it became a lot harder at school and in the public domain. Jenny did not want to compromise her Maori-Chinese culture to be a Pakeha “New Zealander”, and just to clarify, she said, “I am not a banana”. That’s good to know.
Andrew Young spoke honestly of his childhood and teenage years, living and working outside of school hours in a “vacuum” which was his family’s fruit shop. He described his shame and embarrassment of being Chinese and being different. I was relieved to hear a story very similar to my own and perhaps to many others who were there.
Gia Nghi Phung, pronounced something like yangee fung, talked about her name which was something of a puzzle, mixed up through her emigration from Vietnam to Australia and later through common mis-pronounciation.
Also on the panel was David Do. He is one highly accomplished 21-year-old who does a truckload of volunteer work and campaigning for organizations at the University of Auckland. Not only has David overcome the outsider experience of being a Chinese New Zealander, but has had to deal with it in relation to his gay sexual identity. He reminds us that “society likes to put things in boxes” and our cultural identity or our sexual identity is only a part of who we are.
Dr James Liu put things into perspective after pointing out some fundamental concepts on identity construction, stating firstly that identity does not belong to an individual which came as quite a shock. He explains, “identity is a social identity that pertains membership to a group” and allows us to adapt to different situations. History and culture contribute to a shared pool of ideas that people draw from to create identities of self. Family is also a central part of that identity construction.
More simply put, “identity is a story that we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel happy”. And my story sort of goes like this:
My parents are Chinese-Malaysian and my father came to New Zealand to study at Canterbury University in the late 60s. After my parents got married in Malaysia, they moved to Wellington and started their own fish ‘n’ chip shop taking on that terribly clichéd role of the Chinese takeaway because their friends told them it was a good way to earn money.
They soon moved on to other jobs but the life lessons they taught was to work hard, be stingy, be modest, get a good job and then save money for your kids. That mentality for a seemingly mundane, hard-working, money-driven life didn’t sit well with me, nor did the Kiwi attitude of being laid back and cool, so I struggled in the middle trying to figure out a path that would suit me. I soon had to make a choice of beginning a career in architecture or art – two different fields of working and two very different approaches to life – and I ended up choosing art.
I felt my Chinese identity slipping as soon as I started school and stopped speaking Mandarin. I now have the equivalent speaking and literary skills below a three-year-old in China and at the back of my mind learning my native tongue is important to me. I tried relearning it twice, then realised it is impossible to gain fluency in the language without using it everyday and being somewhat integrated in the culture it comes from. As I’ve grown into adulthood that twang of going “back to my roots” has surfaced more but I’ve simultaneously questioned it.
How does one return to a culture that is so distant? Is it important? Andrew Young spent a period in China living in a poor village with relatives which reawakened his sensitivity to the world his parents came from. Some of us need those experiences, some of us choose to ignore them, and some of us are okay with very little knowledge of our ethnic or cultural backgrounds. This conference was a very good vehicle for these attitudes.
The Creative NZ Chinese session was what stood out to me in terms of what people have done visually with their different cultural experiences. Speakers, Ant Sang (illustrator of Bro’Town) and Vikki Cheng (The Rice Girls) both used stereotypes as a basis for their work. The way Ant Sang creates or emphasises New Zealand cultural stereotypes in cartoon seemed in tension with the previous Media panel, with filmmaker Alex Lee passionately urging people to share their stories and correct misrepresentations of Chinese in the media. Hmm, does any culture get away from stereotypes in film or television?
Alex Lee was bringing to light the derogatory roles of Asians in the media, usually churning out images of exotic and sexualised Asian women, like “China Dolls” or the more aggressive “Dragon Ladies“ in films, kung-fu fighting Asian guys who aren’t very sexy, the Asian side-kick, the Chinese triads, the bad Asian driver but Thank God for Shortland Street’s respectable, Dr Grace Kwan.
Vikki Cheng is a visual arts graduate from MIT and her ambitious work with Helen Luo as The Rice Girls, embarked on a humorous play on female Asian stereotypes. Together they posed as Asian school girls, Chinese opera singers, hip hop Asians, ganguro girls and put the images on collector cards. The Rice Girls hip-hop music video, “B.A.D.A.S.S.” was the icing on top with the girls singing lyrics like, “don’t ask for my number if you ain’t Kiwi” in hip hop styles and their bling bling. It was so catchy I was humming the tune of it afterwards.
Creative groups such as, The Wilderness and Cultural Signals were founded by individuals who saw a need to integrate culture, art and life. The Wilderness’ Tiger Translate event was an intersection of art, design and music using local and global talent. Ted Chen, founder of Cultural Signals expressed a similar openness in creative fields aiming to educate and promote cultural diversity through the creative arts. Hosting exhibitions such as the, “We Are” exhibition which opened with the conference, Cultural Signals attempts to involve the community in sharing ideas as well as promoting emerging the work of young artists.
And the surprise guest speaker turned out to be Sándor Lau, recently publicised for his documentary film, Squeegee Bandit. He called himself “The Secret Asian Man”, who only realised he was part-Chinese when his father told him at six years old. I could understand why he wouldn’t have noticed. Another great speaker to top off the day and give us a low-down on life as a hybrid Chinese-American.
The fashion parade and performance by David Tsai could have had a little more assistance with a better stage and sound system, but no doubt there is some good talent coming from there too.
At the end of the day, I came to understand the conference as a place to gather and share ideas and experiences, not to create a separate cultural group as I had first thought. The variety and contrast of viewpoints made the message ever so clear – we are far more diverse than most people think.
Forget the social expectations, I wanna Be a Dope Asian Super-sassy Stereotype. Yeah that’s, B.A.D.A.S.S.
THE Going Bananas: Multiple Identities Forum was my first event of its kind, dealing specifically with Chinese identities in multicultural New Zealand. The Banana concept is a slight throw-off for the wider community who still don’t know what it means but I thought, surely this conference isn’t about being a Banana.
The first “Living with Multiple Identities” section set the right mood with four fantastic speakers sharing their personal stories of their upbringing and their struggles of living between different cultures. Jenny Lee, of Chinese and Maori descent, spoke about her two grandmothers who helped nurture a culturally balanced life by encouraging her involvement in Maori and Chinese activities. She described that it wasn’t hard to be who she was at home but it became a lot harder at school and in the public domain. Jenny did not want to compromise her Maori-Chinese culture to be a Pakeha “New Zealander”, and just to clarify, she said, “I am not a banana”. That’s good to know.
Andrew Young spoke honestly of his childhood and teenage years, living and working outside of school hours in a “vacuum” which was his family’s fruit shop. He described his shame and embarrassment of being Chinese and being different. I was relieved to hear a story very similar to my own and perhaps to many others who were there.
Gia Nghi Phung, pronounced something like yangee fung, talked about her name which was something of a puzzle, mixed up through her emigration from Vietnam to Australia and later through common mis-pronounciation.
Also on the panel was David Do. He is one highly accomplished 21-year-old who does a truckload of volunteer work and campaigning for organizations at the University of Auckland. Not only has David overcome the outsider experience of being a Chinese New Zealander, but has had to deal with it in relation to his gay sexual identity. He reminds us that “society likes to put things in boxes” and our cultural identity or our sexual identity is only a part of who we are.
Dr James Liu put things into perspective after pointing out some fundamental concepts on identity construction, stating firstly that identity does not belong to an individual which came as quite a shock. He explains, “identity is a social identity that pertains membership to a group” and allows us to adapt to different situations. History and culture contribute to a shared pool of ideas that people draw from to create identities of self. Family is also a central part of that identity construction.
More simply put, “identity is a story that we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel happy”. And my story sort of goes like this:
My parents are Chinese-Malaysian and my father came to New Zealand to study at Canterbury University in the late 60s. After my parents got married in Malaysia, they moved to Wellington and started their own fish ‘n’ chip shop taking on that terribly clichéd role of the Chinese takeaway because their friends told them it was a good way to earn money.
They soon moved on to other jobs but the life lessons they taught was to work hard, be stingy, be modest, get a good job and then save money for your kids. That mentality for a seemingly mundane, hard-working, money-driven life didn’t sit well with me, nor did the Kiwi attitude of being laid back and cool, so I struggled in the middle trying to figure out a path that would suit me. I soon had to make a choice of beginning a career in architecture or art – two different fields of working and two very different approaches to life – and I ended up choosing art.
I felt my Chinese identity slipping as soon as I started school and stopped speaking Mandarin. I now have the equivalent speaking and literary skills below a three-year-old in China and at the back of my mind learning my native tongue is important to me. I tried relearning it twice, then realised it is impossible to gain fluency in the language without using it everyday and being somewhat integrated in the culture it comes from. As I’ve grown into adulthood that twang of going “back to my roots” has surfaced more but I’ve simultaneously questioned it.
How does one return to a culture that is so distant? Is it important? Andrew Young spent a period in China living in a poor village with relatives which reawakened his sensitivity to the world his parents came from. Some of us need those experiences, some of us choose to ignore them, and some of us are okay with very little knowledge of our ethnic or cultural backgrounds. This conference was a very good vehicle for these attitudes.
The Creative NZ Chinese session was what stood out to me in terms of what people have done visually with their different cultural experiences. Speakers, Ant Sang (illustrator of Bro’Town) and Vikki Cheng (The Rice Girls) both used stereotypes as a basis for their work. The way Ant Sang creates or emphasises New Zealand cultural stereotypes in cartoon seemed in tension with the previous Media panel, with filmmaker Alex Lee passionately urging people to share their stories and correct misrepresentations of Chinese in the media. Hmm, does any culture get away from stereotypes in film or television?
Alex Lee was bringing to light the derogatory roles of Asians in the media, usually churning out images of exotic and sexualised Asian women, like “China Dolls” or the more aggressive “Dragon Ladies“ in films, kung-fu fighting Asian guys who aren’t very sexy, the Asian side-kick, the Chinese triads, the bad Asian driver but Thank God for Shortland Street’s respectable, Dr Grace Kwan.
Vikki Cheng is a visual arts graduate from MIT and her ambitious work with Helen Luo as The Rice Girls, embarked on a humorous play on female Asian stereotypes. Together they posed as Asian school girls, Chinese opera singers, hip hop Asians, ganguro girls and put the images on collector cards. The Rice Girls hip-hop music video, “B.A.D.A.S.S.” was the icing on top with the girls singing lyrics like, “don’t ask for my number if you ain’t Kiwi” in hip hop styles and their bling bling. It was so catchy I was humming the tune of it afterwards.
Creative groups such as, The Wilderness and Cultural Signals were founded by individuals who saw a need to integrate culture, art and life. The Wilderness’ Tiger Translate event was an intersection of art, design and music using local and global talent. Ted Chen, founder of Cultural Signals expressed a similar openness in creative fields aiming to educate and promote cultural diversity through the creative arts. Hosting exhibitions such as the, “We Are” exhibition which opened with the conference, Cultural Signals attempts to involve the community in sharing ideas as well as promoting emerging the work of young artists.
And the surprise guest speaker turned out to be Sándor Lau, recently publicised for his documentary film, Squeegee Bandit. He called himself “The Secret Asian Man”, who only realised he was part-Chinese when his father told him at six years old. I could understand why he wouldn’t have noticed. Another great speaker to top off the day and give us a low-down on life as a hybrid Chinese-American.
The fashion parade and performance by David Tsai could have had a little more assistance with a better stage and sound system, but no doubt there is some good talent coming from there too.
At the end of the day, I came to understand the conference as a place to gather and share ideas and experiences, not to create a separate cultural group as I had first thought. The variety and contrast of viewpoints made the message ever so clear – we are far more diverse than most people think.
Forget the social expectations, I wanna Be a Dope Asian Super-sassy Stereotype. Yeah that’s, B.A.D.A.S.S.
Evelyn Kiing is currently studying at the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. She is a member of Cultural Signals, a creative collective that seeks to nurture and advance conversations around cultural diversity in New Zealand’s creative industries.
