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Flying into Singapore I feel like I have reached an oasis.  It is a haven created by Lee Kuan Yew for those who are suffering from travel fatigue picked up from other cities! Strolling through the clean streets of Singapore, and hearing voices speaking in the Chinese dialects of Hokkien and Mandarin, I thought I was almost home. Amongst these rather well behaved citizens, and walking into the underground which was squeaky clean, as wholesome looking youth in their crispy ironed shirts and jeans politely step out of my way, my Chinese heart smiled. This is some of the best of Confucianist teachings at work here manifested in the orderly State!

Singapore, a Chinese city. But what is Chinese in a city sprouting multi storeys buildings where everyone spoke English (and Mandarin and Hokkein and some even speak Malay) and hardly a Chinese dress is seen on the many women walking briskly by in Orchard Rd?

I asked myself, a Malaysian born Chinese, who left for Australia the day television arrived in Singapore and the island was still part of Malaya (and Malaysia was just a plan), am I Chinese? A profound question of identity in the streets of Singapore. What ails me, I wondered. Perhaps it was once again the longing of home.

I stood on a street with a distinctively British name – Waterloo St. There I see an old Chinese temple next to a Hindu temple and nearby a Church. Symbols of the Chineseness of Singapore – a blend of East and West, traditional and modern. Nothing is ‘pure’ in Singapore. English is Singlish. Its cuisine is a blend of Chinese, Malay and ‘Westernised’ (whatever that means and requires another discussion altogether). Singapore makes me think that there is no pure Chineseness either. Perhaps I needed to look further and deeper. I turned into a side street off Orchard Rd and from the corner of my eyes, I saw a young boy with his grandmother. He was about to hand over a bowl of noodles to her. He cups it in both hands, and presents to her, in a gesture so Confucianistic that I smiled in recognition. My mind had gone back to a childhood full of admonitions from adults – use both hands to give things to elders as a sign of honouring those older than ourselves. But then is Confucianism Chinese? Aren’t Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese Confucianist but not Chinese? A good question for a budding PhD student.  But an editorial is no place to explore this question in depth. Time to move on.

The next city was Hong Kong. New airport, similar to the famous Changi airport in Singapore. Hong Kong was my first Chinese city in 1974 and back then, I felt it was Chinese. In the streets were hawkers, shouting at the top of their voices in Cantonese, yelling and spitting. Hong Kong displayed typical horrid Chinese behaviour, I had thought then. My newly wed husband was in a state of culture shock and asked innocently: Why were the people in Hong Kong constantly quarrelling? Amused at my gweilo husband’s ignorance about the Cantonese way of speaking,  I had to enlighten him that that was the way they usually talked to each other.

I didn’t realise then that I was stereotyping. Since then I have seen Europeans spitting in the streets in cities of Europe, I have heard the loud voices of German tourists and the drunks all over Australia behaving like Chinese in Hong Kong. My own stereotype of the Chinese in Hong Kong back then misled me into thinking the loudness and vulgarity of street vendors to be typically Chinese. Years later, when the lenses of ethnocentrism were removed by a more educated knowledge of the Cantonese of Hong Kong, I returned to the question of what is Chinese about Hong Kong. In the brisk unsmiling unfriendliness, typical of those who dwell in big cities like New York and Sydney, the Hong Kong Chinese in the central business district were rushing through and had no time to answer questions from lost tourists. They were not rude, just hurrying. Yet in this city, I spied acts so profoundly Chinese that again I had to smile. A young man in a restaurant, picked up food in his chopsticks and put it in his girlfriend’s bowl. An ancient gesture of Chinese courtship, so rarely seen these days, as the Chinese youth eat with Western utensils, or with their hands in MacDonalds. Confucianism has taught that no emotions must be displayed yet in that gesture of feeding one’s beloved, an honour bestowed by the host upon the guest, man onto woman, older onto younger, our Chineseness rears its ancient head in a thoroughly modern city like Hong Kong.

Ah, time stood still for a moment. But only a moment for it was time to fly to Beijing.

Beiijng airport. New and welcoming. I could not believe it. My last trip here was in 1994. My sister and I climbed into a taxi and was immediately charged double the price. Nothing Chinese about that. All taxi drivers do that if they can get away with it. In Lima, or Madrid, the same thing happened. As we drove through the streets of Beijing, I received yet another shock. Thousands of cars, bumper to bumper. My mind flew back to 1978, my very first visit to Beijing. Back then, I could count the number of cars on the street with one hand.

What is Chinese about Beijing? The people? The language they speak – putong hua? No. I checked into a modern hotel and at once, I could be anywhere in Singapore or Hong Kong. All these business hotels and airports look alike, they are designed to be the same. I wandered through the hutongs, the back lanes of Beijing. I saw the old China, the poverty, the dank dirty crowded space that all poor people live in. The universality of the poor, yes, but not unique to Chinese. I have seen such poverty in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Even in London.

The city of Beijing is alive with multi storey buildings and traffic jams yet its streets are cleaned by human sweepers. These human beings were poetry in motion, observed from my hotel room on the 8^th floor. Sweeping the streets of Beijing clean. Just as they did in 1974 in their blue tunics. Today they are doing the same thing but their clothes are strapped by neon orange, a safety measure borrowed from the west.

So I meandered through more streets. Autumn in Beijing is beautiful, crisp air, blue sky and the sun shining after a day of pouring rain. Tiananmen Square was full of red flags and people celebrating National Day. Here in the packed millions, I sensed a Chineseness unlike that of Singapore and Hong Kong. It was pride, a pulsating volcano of Chinese nationalism absent in Hong Kong and Singapore. The might of the Chinese dragon. It has awakened. It is more than nationalism. It is more than “we love China and China is home” as their national anthem goes. No. It is something that it is totally subjective, a feeling. A feeling that speaks silently – we are Chinese no matter where we are.  It is not to do with the food we eat, not in the language or dialect we speak. It is a feeling that we are different. It is this knowingness – that we are Chinese. A thought instilled in us by our parents, not verbally, but in many acts of Chineseness, as in the two hands of the grandson, the gesture of the courting lover – and many more acts, unsung, unseen, but completely Chinese in spirit.

Leaving Beijing for Australia, as I entered the plane and settled into my seat, I wondered: where is home for a gypsy like me? The theme song of Qantas emerged as if from the depths of nowhere – “…. no matter how far I roam…. I still call Australia home…..”. Home is this ancient land that the Aboriginal people have bequeathed to us, to me, and I am so lucky to be here – blue skies, white sands and clean air.  The plane takes off and suddenly the sea of Brighton beckons, my bike is waiting for me in the garage and my friends and my Melbourne family …. My heart sings – Home is where the heart is.  My heart is with friends and family and wherever they are, there I find ‘home’. I am truly a gypsy now, back to my hakka roots (the hakkas are the gypsies of China, the ke jia ren).  As a gypsy, I have no home, yet at home everywhere!

I will be home for Christmas, in time to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Which is more important? To study a foreign language or learn about its culture? I was asked this question after I gave an address to a group of young diplomates from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. My answer is simple: Both. This is not an either or question. Language and culture are intrinsically bonded. Language is a component of culture. However, just by knowing a language well does not mean that you can communicate effectively. Note how many husbands and wives have communication breakdowns even though they speak English very well. To be effective communicators cross-culturally, it is important to know the foreign language and its attendant culture. It is when we can taste the foreign words in our mouths that we begin to get a feel of the language. It is when we can hear the foreign sounds in our ears and see how the words are constructed (especially in ideographic languages such as Chinese and Japanese) that we can get a sense of the culture. Through this subconscious process of osmosis, it is possible to learn a foreign language in the way that we have learnt our mother tongue. It takes a child about 2 years to master his/her mother tongue in this holistic manner using his/her feelings as well as a multitude of senses to absorb the language. Similarly his/her native culture is absorbed. However, to be effective in our cross-cultural communications skills do require a few basic things.

The important criterion for effective cross-cultural communication is our use of stereotypes in the way we speak and listen. Stereotypes are usually distorted ways of perceiving another person. If we rely on cultural and racial stereotypes to relate to foreigners, then it is likely that we will not be very effective. This is because stereotypes usually tell us that the user is ignorant. It is also insulting to the person who is being stereotyped. Unlearning stereotyping is a particular skill that may take a lot of conscious doing since stereotypes are usually subsconscious. They are acquired at a very young age and constantly reinforced daily in the media and jokes as well as in daily conversations held with friends and strangers. One of the most effective ways to get rid of cultural stereotypes is to learn about the cultures of foreigners. Get the facts and figures, then form your opinion. Another is to attend a cross-cultural communcation skills workshop. If neither of this appeal, then do some reading. Often fiction gives you a way into another person’s culture in a metaphorical way.  This is of course applies to films as well. The rewards of cross-cultural communication effectiveness are many the chief one being the breakdown of prejudices and a greater acceptance of our cultural differences.

One day following a lecture on Confucius, a student came up and asked me if he was a real person. I guess he was as real as Jesus Christ, I replied and much older. She thought that Confucius was a mythical figure. He certainly is not a mythical figure. He is still very much alive in fact in terms of the influence of his teachings. They affected billions of people from the Chopstick culture for thousands of years. Even today, the Confucianist ethic is the conscious and often subconscious motivation that drives many Chinese (and Japanese,  Koreans, and Vietnamese) Confucius was born in 551BC and died around 479BC. His major teachings are found in four books: The Analects, Book of Poetry, Book of Rites and the I Ching (Book of Change). The authorship of these books is open to dispute. Some claim that Confucius wrote them himself

However, given that he often claimed that he was not the originator of culture but its transmitter, I suspect that he reinterpreted some of the ideas passed down from his ancestors who were most likely a mixture of animists and what is known today as Taoists, people who follow the teachings of Lao Tse. Confucius thought Lao Tse was the wisest man he knew. When Buddhism was introduced to China, the Chinese adopted it into their system of spiritual beliefs quite readily. Today in most of Asia, when a Chinese says s/he is a Buddhist, you can be sure there are elements of Confucianism and Taoism in their worldview. So, when pondering on what makes the Chinese tick, you must note that three major spiritual forces: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism have blended in an inexplicable way to mould them.

CONFUCIUS SAID: To be fond of learning is near to wisdom; to practise with vigour is near to benevolence; and to be conscious of shame is near to fortitude. He who knows these three things knows how to cultivate his own character.

To be in Sydney is to be in a foreign country if you had just arrived from Melbourne! I landed in Sydney a day before Chinese New Year a few years ago! The sun was blinding and the air was thick with promises of a hot summer night on its way! Staying in Sydney’s Chinatown is a wondrous feeling – fire crackers, smells of roast ducks and char siew, beautiful Chinese girls exposing midriffs and a sliver of swaying hip and awesome Chunks (read Chinese hunks) – it must be a foreign country, Can’t be Australia, not even, Little Burke Street in Melbourne. Sydney! Sydney!

There I was trying to employ more teachers for our classes. They are all young women from mainland China. I appointed Shu Yi immediately when she answered: SKY to my question: Why do you want to live in Australia? That was the most original reply to this question of mine at every interview. More than originality, it was a poetic answer and I understood immediately and profoundly what she meant by that one word. The sky in Sydney is different from all the big cities of China. Here in Australia, it is blue, specks of white cloud, little sailing ships cruising across our very eyes. It always makes me want to reach up and touch them. Shu Yi, in her mid twenties, would have been born and grown up in a China that may never see clear blue sky in her big cities. In 1994, when I was in Beijing, I already knew that a whole generation of Chinese may never see blue skies in Beijing. Back there recently, I gazed out of my hotel room and knew that I was right. The desire to see the sky is what keeps Shu Yi in Australia as she completes her post graduate studies and is now teaching at our Chinese classes!

Iris Huang is also part of our teaching team in Sydney. Iris is an accountant by training but her heart is so big that she needs to fill it with Australian students instead of just numbers. She and Shu Yi are also Cantonese speaking. With Iris and Shu Yi, are Jocelyn and Shen. So in Sydney, we have four teachers all trained in Accelerated Learning techniques in a very accelerated manner seeing I had only two weeks there! Well, nothing is impossible in my book. These young teachers are bright in looks, spirit and mind. It is heart warming to train them.

Meeting the students in Sydney is good fun! Sitting in their classes and listening to them speak in Mandarin reminded me of ACCS Melbourne twelve years ago. At that time, I had felt that Chinese languages/dialects and culture would one day be a necessity for many Australians as they go there to work in China and have fun. Today, watching the number of Australians wanting to learn Chinese is gratifying. I am so happy that in spite of the challenges, we have kept ACCS open. I truly believe that learning their language is the best way to forge bonds with other human beings different from us. Learning English was really hard for a lot of us Chinese and even today, I still speak and write English with terrible and terrifying mistakes! (By simply changing the preposition “of” to “off”, I can offend so easily an Australian friend). Nevertheless, had I not been able to speak English well, my life would have been rather impoverished as I struggle to live in Australia. (And to make things even harder, I am often told that Australians don’t speak English!) Watching our teachers in class, my heart bleeds for them as they struggle at times to speak English, to tell the stories dramatically in tune with the largo music. Their voices are loud and strong for they are Chinese after all, yet in their eyes, I see a fleeting fear, maybe a shyness, simply because they think that their English may not be good enough to be understood by their Aussie students. Then I let my eyes scan the faces of the students, and this time, my heart opens wide for the kind understanding and tolerance I see shining from their eyes. And patience. Yes, as they attempt to understand our teachers’ communication styles, their weird and wonderful pronunciations of the English words. So in a moment eternal and universal, hearts bond, eyes meet across the classroom, and in that wonderful, wonderful moment, a language of knowingness, a dialect of silence, speaks louder than words, forging understanding and a kind of humanity that transcends our differences.

In that two weeks in Sydney, feeling as if I was in a foreign country, walking the streets late at night after classes, getting lost for I have no sense of direction, eating unhealthy food, fighting through crowds of tourists, taking public transport and taxis with horrendously rude cab drivers with foreign accents, I had a sense of isolation sometimes, a homesickness for Melbourne assailed me, but as always, when my feelings go to a place of darkness, the Force of love and light shines upon my brow – two women students, Pollyanna and Wendy from Melbourne. They smiled and told me that they were originally from Melbourne’s ACCS. That was enough to forge an instant bonding between Pollyana and me for Argentinian tango if not Chinese grammar, When Wendy walked into class for the first time, there was a rush of energy from me to her and I had thought then that I knew her! The second week when we talked, we discovered we had met or rather she had seen me ‘performed’ over ten years ago! Ah, it was good to have two friends from Melbourne. Just like a friend, Wendy rang the night before I left for Melbourne and invited me to breakfast at a business brekkie in Sydney where I would meet people and make good guanxi in Sydney.  How kind she was. But I was needed in Melbourne and I need to be home in Melbourne by the sea, for the blue sky of Brighton.