I Don’t Consider Myself British: by A. Moo.

Hong Kong: Identity Issue

(This the first installment of a series of guest blogs people have written for Glutter about the issues of belonging, race, sexuality and who we think we are.)

I remember an argument I had some years back with my Uncle. It basically came down to my uncle’s problem with the fact that I didn’t really consider myself essentially British. Further to this he couldn’t accept the fact that if Britain went to war, I’d probably not support them.

The background to this is that I was born in HK to British Parents. I’ve probably lived in the UK for a total of 10 years (if you include the 3 years I lasted in boarding school – which I don’t think are that applicable considering most of those years were spent imprisoned in a dormitory). I’ve always felt that I don’t belong on either side on the fence.

After my secondary school days ended here in HK, I went back to UK in order to go to Uni. In the six years that I lived in UK, I often felt alienated, very rarely feeling accepted by British people who had spent their entire lives in the UK. As soon as they would find out my background, and realize that I didn’t know many of those things you learn living in a country all your life (famous people, historical facts, tv shows etc), people would treat me differently. Often (and probably in some ways quite correctly) they would label me as spoilt when they heard about my summer days on boats and beaches and then go out of their way to ignore me.

At the end of the day, what is it that makes me so different, just because I was brought up in a different country. I’m no more special then anyone else, just had different experiences. I do sometimes wish my Mother had bore me earlier, if she’d conceived me a year earlier, I’d have true dual nationality. You see my brothers were both born in Australia. Not that I’m saying Australia is any better place to be born that HK. Its just they get an Aussie and a British passport. I get a plastic identity card which allows me to jump the immigration queue, take out library books etc and that can be taken away from me if I leave HK for three years. My brother’s children have dual nationality; mine (if I ever get round to having any) would have nothing to show for where I was born. In fact, if I married someone not born of UK and had my children outside of UK then they would lose their British nationality.

When I finally came back to HK, I felt like I’d arrived home, I understood the way things were done. England never felt like home.

So, I don’t feel I’m British, however, I know I’m not Chinese. Just an aside – brings me to a funny story of a party I had in London. I’d brought a couple of different groups of friends together and we’d got into a discussion about my background. A guy, who had lived in the UK all his life, could not understand why I would not say since I was born in HK that I was Chinese. No matter how much we explained the difference between nationality and race, he just didn’t get it. He was a strange one – he ended up walking out of the party because we had all started telling jokes (u know – to break the ice). My Irish friend told an Irish joke, my Indian friend told a Indian joke and I told a English, Scottish and Chinese joke – he accused us all of being racist and left!!

Anyway, aside from the very obvious race factor, a further reason why I couldn’t possibly call myself Chinese is that embarrassingly enough – I cannot speak Cantonese fluently. I suppose you could accuse me of getting caught up in an occupying forces’ belief that the locals should learn their lingo not the other way round. However, this is not true – I believe that it is an expat residents’ responsibility to learn the local language. In HK though it is hard because it is made so easy not to speak it, its difficult to immerse oneself in the language and culture.

I admit I probably haven’t tried hard enough. When I was aged two my mother had asked our amah to teach me Cantonese and she had refused because hers was street Cantonese. I am not a linguist – I know coz I learnt French for 8 years and still can’t hold a conversation beyond my hair colour, age and name. Anyway, its all besides the point, even if I spoke the lingo fluently, I’d still not be Chinese.

When I was a teenager there were many days that I’d feel displaced – not knowing where I belonged. However, as I’ve got older, I’ve grown used to it. I hear the pride of Scottish people, Yorkshire people, American people and it makes me wonder. Is this really a good thing? Categorizing oneself against others – considering your way always the best way. So now when I stop to ponder my nationality I tend to just feel that I am born of this planet earth. Next time I get to one of those boxes that asks me for my nationality, I’d love to write ‘Earthling’.

PS. Learning to Speak by Douglas Crets

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