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"Red Heart Moon" a WEST MEETS EAST China Weblog -- by Kevin Hart
Cross-cultural musings about life straddling the Pacific.
last modified Jun 16, 2004 at 17:43
I have heard that 400,000 of this city's total population of 3 million are of Chinese heritage. In Vancouver, way over on the other flank of the Big Turtle (a Native Canadian term meaning North America) is said to have 600,000 Chinese immigrants out of a population of 1.8 million. (Being raised in a relatively isolated small town to a Finnish-Canadian family, I did not meet any until I was already an adult. My interest in China did not begin until I actually went to Asia and subsequently wanted to learn where it all sprouted from).
The biggest recent influx in recent years had to be in the early 90's, mostly from from Hong Kong. Many admit they were worried about the HK handover to Chinese rule, and wanted Canadian citizenship just as a safety net. Whatever they came for, be it the building of the Yukon gold rush in the 1960's, to find work building the trans-Canada railway, or to provide an alternative lifestyle and western education possibilities for their children around the turn of the century, or to start out fresh in a clean, uncrowded country, they certainly make for a very visible and highly influential portion of Canadian, (and entire Big Turtle) population. Some now are already 2nd, 3rd, 4th, even 5th generation, not speaking a lick of Chinese, some are new arrivals who are very keen to assimilate, others have been here for 20 years and have not felt the need to learn any English or French. To each his own I guess, it is their right under the Freedoms Act to pursue a lifestyle of their chosing as long as it does not infringe on those of any others. It is a shame though that people that have come from so far do not want to learn the language and ways of their adopted countries, just like it is a shame that westerners traveling or working in China are not interested in "doing as the Romans". What a missed opportunity, locking oneself up in his cultural heritage and not being open to the absorption of new ideas and knowledge afforded. Would you go to Shanghai just to eat at McDonald's? (Wait, don't answer that!!)
I would not totally agree that the United States forces people to melt away all their heritage and cultural uniqueness in an agressive "melting pot" while Canada offers a happy-go-lucky laisser-fair attitude in dealing its vast multicultural immigrant population. This is a simplification for sure. There are so many dynamics involved in the integrating of new people and cultures into our very young societies that decide their quality of life and the acceptance in the eyes of others around them.
Canada has raised the bar once again and skilled labourers from China (Canada's current #1 source of new faces) with the new immigration laws. Only a few high-jumpers can make it, and there often is no soft landing for them trying to make it on talent and desire alone in this country with its rather depressed economy. On the other hand, it is getting easier all the time for those thick bill-folded people to come and go as they please, some of whom now even maintain immigrant status indefinitely and pad their Canadian bank accounts with their Asian business ventures, never caring to become citizens.
I have been able to fit in a lot of socializing and shopping in my few days here in Sudbury, the largest city (100,000) in Northern Ontario. It has been great to see my parents and all my relatives from different parts of the province. I really hope they get a chance to visit me in China some day, but I am not holding my breath. Each of them is very involved in their work, school, and families, and will be hard pressed to check out the Middle Kingdom any time soon.
My brother, a psychology professor, has only ever heard bad news stories coming out of China, and I had the chance to explain that while there certainly are injustices done there (as elsewhere, just different ones), it is actually a safe, and very compelling place to travel. Living there is like existing on another planet and indeed often does seem like a world unto itself. Many Canadians seem to understand the relative smallness of their place in the world community, especially with Big Brother just south of the border. But with 1.3 billion people and with its rapid and uneven economic development, other events in the world often seem blotted out and faded in the background in every day life in China.
News reporting is a funny thing to start with. They say that in North America "If it bleeds, it leads", and certainly I cannot stomach for more than a few minutes all the horrible images coming out of the world's troubled spots that the western media harps on endlessly. China seems to be at the other end of the reporting spectrum. When I first started studying Chinese 12 years ago, my classmates and I always were amazed that in China they only broadcast the "The Good News" and very little of the down side of life there. West and East, at least North America and China, are at opposite ends of the spectrum. There is good and bad to both ways of reporting things.
One a lighter note, one thing that is funny is that most of the stuff I have wanted to buy here in Ontario is made in China, but not available at the manufacturing source. I guess the export all the good stuff! Even my refrigerator stickers of Canadian flags, the Toronto skyline, Niagara Falls, along with beavers, moose, and Grizzly Bears, etc. etc. were all made somewhere near Shanghai, I imagine.
They say time passes faster as you get older, and I would most certainly agree. It is an interesting coincidence that my parents had me at about the same ages and my wife and I had our baby Perin. Becoming a parent for the first time for us has been an incredible experience. But when I was conceived, my dad didn't believe it for quite a while because my sister and brother are 7 and 5 years older than me respectively. My dad thought my mom was joking when she came back from the hospital and said number 3 was on the way.
In our case, some 40 years later, Jennifer and I had tried for four years to conceive, and then after we had completely given up hope, Jennifer got pregnant. I had trouble believing it too, and had to get 100% unequivocable verification from the hospital as well until my brain could process the big news.
My most immediate thought right now is that I hope Jennifer and I are in as good health as my parents Kay and Leo when we are in our 80's.
Having fun and enjoying life most certainly has a great deal to do with longevity.
My sister Kathie hosted a party at her house (the sacred place on Nepahwin Lake where we 3 kids were so blessed to have grown up), and there must have been 60 family members and friends most old and some new, sharing and celebrating the great accomplishment of my parents' 50th anniversary. That was a trip down memory lane for so many, a renewing of family ties and friendships, and a simply wonderful afternoon.
Coming back to Sudbury and its small town lifestyle makes for such a wonderful contrast with the bustle and hustle of modern China. Sudbury is even-keeled, quiet, clean, green, and changing incrementally. Chongqing is literally the Wild West (of China), loud, dirty, grey, and changing exponentially. What Sudbury is, Chongqing isn't, and vice versa. Life in Sudbury can be predictable while Chongqing has, I often say, the best of the best, the worst of the worst, more of each, and it is all thrown together in this big hot pot of every day life. It can be very raw existance, and spontaneity can and often does reign in the supreme.
Hello everyone, how's it goin' eh? I hope everyone enjoys my weblog. I plan to share anecdotes and observations from a westerner's perspective. Some will have happened years ago, others very recently. Currently, I live in Chongqing, China, a large city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
What is going on right now is that after two years and four months straight of living in the land of hot pot, hills, and fog, I have finally come home to the Great White North of Ontario, Canada. It will be a short but sweet visit, and everyone is gathering to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary.
Welcome to Red Heart Moon! Feel free to leave comments after any entry, and I hope you enjoy this look at "China Through the Eyes of a Resident Foreigner". Happy reading!
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