Fiji Chinese

The making of a Fiji Chinese

By Huang Sui-Lan

1 NEVER knew a charming or understanding adult in all my childhood and adolescence. All the fathers and mothers I knew, includ ing my own, were a grim lot, so vulgar and coarse and insulting, always shouting, always angry, al ways defensive, always yelling at each other when they were not busy yelling at the kids. And as I grew up I learned the stereotypes of the Chinese: the well disciplined Chinese, the acquiescent Chinese, the con scientious Chinese, the unobtrusive Chinese. I knew how these species of the Chinese came about. Funny, but I never heard a grown-up being loving or even singing except when he was practising diligently for some concert, and even then it was singing about some heart-rending plight of a family. You just cannot call that entertaining or exciting.

At a very early age I decided that I was going to be something entirely removed from the adults around me.

I was going to be a nun. Impossible though that dream was it helped me along in the more miserable moments.

And it represented a life that was not congested by the obligations of my uncongenial folks. My life was to be my own. I would not be coerced to do anything I didn’t particularly want to, or so I thought.

In my more charitable moments I’d see their fault as being illiterate in English and in being Chinese. I did not understand that their lives were a long labour to earn their daily bread, and physical fatigue does not sweeten human natures. But I hated the thought of growing up to be like

the adults around me. It was con fusing to hear the adults say one thing and do another. I heard them say cruel things about their dearest friends, socialise with those they slashed in gossip, say one thing and not mean it. And I couldn’t help being affected by their paranoic attachment to face, to enforcing everyone to know their place in the society so that the slightest injury to their pride, however fanciful, was re acted to in proportions I could not understand. They did not forgive.

And I grew up knowing my place.

Growing older I think I felt a mixture of condescending contempt and pity of my elders. I thought I understood them. They had suffered and laboured all their lives. Coming from a peasant background where security depended on the sun and the moon, the rains and the spirits, it was inevitable that when the opportunity for economic security presented itself, it would be grabbed with both hands.

But I guess only the Chinese would work themselves to their graves, thinking what they were getting a “bargain”. They were living a reality.

They could not afford to dream, but I realised this much later. I could not understand how they could settle for so little with so much hard work.

And I resented being dragged along.

Me, I had a thousand dreams — dreams from which to choose, to master my destiny.

And so it was natural perhaps that the resentment, the condescending contempt and pity on my part was to draw me, like so many other children around the world, into a struggle with the adults around me and responsible

for me. We became enemies talking two different lingos, literally and

metaphorically.

My family and I grew up together in the wop wops, in a neighbourhood where the cows and horses, cats and dogs and goats and chickens far sur passed people in number.

My parents must have been pretty ignorant on family planning. The six of us came into the world in a span of eight years. The seventh 10 years later was a big mistake.

We must have been a real burden on the parents as they were struggling to make a new living in a new en vironment. They had very little time for us.

As a child I remember being looked after by a series of housegirls —all Indians. Where we lived we had a Fijian village 100 yards to our right and an Indian settlement 100 yards to the left. We learned the Indian language and mixed freely with the people in the Indian settle ment. There was very little socialis ing with the Fijians. We took these things as a matter of course. Only much later did I come to understand why we were not encouraged to actively participate in the village affairs.

When I was about five I remem ber that we children were forced to learn to speak Chinese. My parents must have suddenly realised that they were rearing a pack of Indian kids.

We hardly ever conversed with our parents. When they were free late in the evenings we would be in bed.

Some mothers and fathers visited us and were absolutely horrified at our speaking Hindi and not comprehend ing Chinese. The news spread and my parents came under much scorn and ridicule. Hence the rod came to be used. The instrument has a tre mendous influence in producing the basic Chinese personality. We learnt to be Chinese.

What was really great, really tre mendous, was being able to play foot ball and to go fishing with my brothers and their friends. Looking back I realise that I was the only girl accepted into this all-boys club.

I was given this status mainly be cause I could do all the things they could and just as well. We would disappear for hours on end and I knew that when I got home the rod was waiting for me. I resented being a girl, being told to stay home and learn some domestic trait. My brothers seemed to have all the privileges. It seems I was destined to learn my place. I couldn’t seem to get out. It’s like quicksand. You go under slowly and stay there. If you get out, if at all, you crawl.

Initially the rod and the wails of

despair did not matter. For a while I used to think it was worth it. Perhaps if your character is strong you just hang on and do your thing. I fell under its might.

We all grew up straight. If we had any desire to go wrong we never had a chance. Thl Chinese family structure is too strong. If we were unhappy at least we knew security, we knew the rules. As kids I think we were up to pranks of every kind.

My mother was always there with her rod. If we quarrelled we would all get a hiding. We never came home to an empty house. There was always the smell of cooking or people yelling at each other.

There was never a shortage of food. I never remember not having enough to eat. In fact 1 remember being forced to eat all the time. My mother was formidable. I distinctly remember having eggs for breakfast

every day—boiled, fried, poached,

you name it we had it. We had a poultry farm. Eggs abounded, especially the ones we cracked, so we had

to eat them because they were good for us. To this day 1 still have an aversion to eggs. I think my mother had her own myths and legends on how to bring up a family. In fact she contrived to do everything that social psychology books tell you not to do.

My father supported his wife and seven kids doing all kinds of things.

It is difficult to be objective about something that has been part of your indoctrination process. We were al ways told about my parents’ struggles when we were naughty or ungrateful for what was being done for us. Our parents would not have had to struggle if it weren’t for us. It was because of them that we are where we are today. So like all the other Chinese children we have this tie to the parents that we sometimes accept, sometimes reject because we must compromise our beliefs, decisions, ideas and aspirations with those of our parents.

Compared to my parents, our child hood was heaven. But you don’t see it that way when you are a child.