Reflections on the Trini Chinese

There is no tradition of getting up to tell an audience what one really felt about one’s personal life, except when desperate for public redress and a chance to seek justice. More highly respected was a stoic silence about what one did, especially if one were successful. And it was wise not to bore people with an account of one’s failures. From the few available writings about the personal past coming from the ethnic Chinese communities in the region over the past two hundred years, one cannot but feel that ethnic Chinese have carried this practice with them overseas.

Wang Gungwu, Ethnic Chinese: The Past in Their Future, Chinese America: History & Perspectives 2000, 7.

On each anniversary of the Chinese arrival to Trinidad, which is celebrated on October 12, a mix of emotions wells up within me. These range from pride about the achievements of the Chinese who have come to these shores, most of whom came from impoverished beginnings, to feelings of reservation about how much still needs to be done in terms of the integration of the Chinese into the national community.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not for one minute saying that the Chinese do not form part and parcel of our multi-ethnic society. What I am, in fact, making a claim for is that to some extent the Chinese in this country are still viewed in some quarters as exotic and as a quaint element of our nation’s cultural and ethnic tapestry for whatever reason that may be.

One may refer to many phenomena that attest to how well integrated the Chinese community has become in Trinidad and Tobago. The village Chinese shopkeeper or parlour owner, the Chinese fast food outlet, the fact that our first Governor General was and that our current President is of Chinese descent, the numbers of mixed marriages involving Chinese – these are just a few of the indicators as to how well united to the whole the Chinese have become since the first migrants came here just 200 years ago.

Oh and of course, one cannot forget the many successful Chinese businessmen and women in retailing (like on Charlotte Street), in finance (like banking) and in manufacturing (just take a look at a recent edition of the Trinidad’s Who’s Who) that one can highlight. This is also not to mention the distinguished number of medical doctors, lawyers, engineers, artistes and professionals of Chinese descent that one can name.

Yet at the same time that accolades are being heaped upon members of the community for their accomplishments and rightly so, there are still the signs that when a Chinese man, woman or child walks the street, he or she is subject to the faces of bemusement or slight derision or even the verbal tease that portends a disquiet that exists subliminally beneath the calm exterior surface of relations with the rest of the society.

I believe it was Edwin Ayoung, calypsonian Crazy, who was said to have had his audience in stitches some years ago when he repeated the well-known taunt to the Chinese individual – “Chinee, chinee never die, flat nose and chinkey eye.”

It is a little matter that needs not be exaggerated, but it is still an issue, that the Chinese man or woman sometimes meets with a treatment that is inappropriate in our multi-ethnic society. One may well say that no ethnic group in our society is spared of this type of disparaging behaviour from time to time and after all, it is not meant to be taken seriously, the more relaxed in our presence, may quip. Yet I still offer to the reader that there is still room for improvement in the way in which interaction with the Chinese coming from the rest of our multi-ethnic and diverse society is conducted.

That is not all, one may well argue that it is a two-way street and that the Chinese have themselves been known to be aloof from the rest of Trinidad and Tobago society. It may yet be so but for every instance that one may cite of the indifference of the Chinese individual to the goings on – political or social – in the country, there still exist cases of active involvement by some socially conscious members of the community. The jury is still out on this matter, one may say.

This brings me to the passage above, quoted from eminent Chinese studies scholar and professor Wang Gungwu. It is taken from an address that he made in 1998 and given in Manila in the Philippines, not too long after the anti-Chinese riots that took place in Indonesia that year. The Chinese of Trinidad and Tobago have not been too far different from the assessment made by Professor Gungwu when he asserted that theirs is a lifestyle that eschews reflection. As in the quest for commercial success, the Chinese are always on the go and will pursue excellence wherever they may find themselves. Perhaps it is this continuous need to be on the “go” that precludes a mood of reflection and assessment needed in the evolution of the community in its search for ways of deeper and more mature integration into our society. The opposite situation, however, is highlighted by the number of successful families that the community has produced over the years in this country. Yet it may well be asked where are the similarly successful scholars of the Chinese community in Trinidad who have laboured in the academic vineyards, amidst the country’s archives and historical records to chronicle the contribution that this ethnic group has made to the society. In this regard, Dr Walton Look Lai’s academic publications are outstanding exceptions to this fact.

It would almost seem as if the collective memory of the Chinese migration to this country and the many episodes that took place in that meta-history have been, if not lost, at least willfully consigned to the back room of research endeavours by all in the society, including the Chinese themselves.

So when you next encounter a Trinidadian of Chinese ancestry, do spare a thought to the future of research on the quickly disappearing past of that community’s heritage in our multi-cultural society.

Permit me the hope that research efforts and energies will continue and new initiatives emerge on the Trinidadian Chinese. One can only express the wish as one year begins, that well placed and generous benefactors from both within and beyond the Chinese community can step forward to sponsor on-going research into the dynamic Chinese presence in our beloved country.

(Gregory O’Young is a

PhD student at the UWI)