Being Chinese in an anti-China world

I speak & think in English. But I'm genetically Chinese and that is problematic in an anti-China Western world.

Photo by Hyunwon Jang on Unsplash

We were just having a normal conversation under the warm Adelaide sun when she said, “I hate Chinese people. Hate them.”

I stared at her, wondering if she realised that I am Chinese. I mean, I knew she meant China Chinese, but it still shocked me. It was at that moment that I realised that she didn’t see me as Chinese … because I didn’t fit the mold.

Malaysians are often puzzling to most Westerners, and probably most Asians too. We have crazy context-switching skills.

For the longest time, I thought that just meant our ability to switch from English, Mandarin, and Malay at the drop of a hat. But it’s more than that. Not only can we switch languages, we can switch how we interact with different cultures so that they can be comfortable with us. To do so, we must understand the cultures of the West and the East at once.

This is because Malaysia, like most South-East Asian countries, is squished between the West and the East. To survive, we had to be able to relate and interact with these powerful blocs without being, well, bombed.