Malay or English, they had officials who
had lived in Southeast Asia, or had
served in Indonesia for many years, and spoke Malay, Bahasa Indonesia or
Hokkien like natives, and could eavesdrop and understand us. So we could not
switch languages to cut them out. On the few nights we had dinner by ourselves
we had a hilarious time comparing notes.
At every stop the Beijing officials who looked after us and our needs would
engage members of our party in conversation to gauge our attitudes on various
issues and our reactions to them. They were very thorough. Our press men told
us that late every night they were seen discussing the day’s findings and writing
up detailed reports of the day’s conversations and observations. I wondered who
would read them – obviously somebody must, because they took their reporting
seriously. I concluded one reason they wanted me to visit was their desire to
meet me face-to-face and assess my character and attitudes.
As we bade them goodbye at the railway station in Guangzhou,
the desk
officer in charge of Southeast Asia and Singapore, a tall, consumptive-looking
man in his 50s, told K.C. Lee that after observing me for two weeks, he found
me hard and tough. I took that as a tribute. When they clapped their hands in
unison to welcome me, I waved back. I did not clap back, as was their form. I
felt it ridiculous to clap in response. I made a point of being Singaporean and
different. We reacted alike: neither Choo, Ling nor I felt we were one of them. In
fact we had never felt more un-Chinese than on that first visit.
It was also embarrassing, when visiting a factory or exhibition, to be offered,
as was their custom, a brush, Chinese ink on a slab of slate and a sheet of rice
paper or a clean page in a book to write my comments. Since my acquaintance
with a Chinese brush was limited to
a few months in primary school, I had to
decline and ask for an ordinary pen to write my comments in English.
This feeling of not being Chinese became less intense as I got to know them
better and was no longer distracted by the differences of speech, dress and
manners. But on that first visit, we found them and their manners alien. With the
Chinese in the south, we could have passed off in appearance as one of them.
But even so we felt keenly that we were not one of them.
I was to discover that many of our young Chinese students who went back to
China in the 1950s to contribute to the revolution were never accepted into
Chinese society. They were always separate,
hua qiao
or
overseas Chinese,
different, “softies” who did not quite belong. It was sad; they had gone back
because they wanted so much to contribute and belong. They were, or perhaps
had to be, treated differently with perks and privileges not available to the locals,
or life would have been too difficult for them. And because of those perks and
privileges, they were resented. It was difficult for both sides. Sentiments of
kinship were fine provided the overseas relative lived abroad and visited
occasionally bearing gifts and greetings. But to stay and be part of China was to
be a burden unless the relative had special skills or knowledge. Many who went
back with romantic revolutionary ideals ended up as émigrés in Hong Kong and
Macau, where
they found life more congenial, more like that in the Singapore
and Malaya they once despised and abandoned. Many of them had petitioned to
be allowed to return to Singapore. Our Internal Security Department strongly
recommended against this, suspecting plants by the MCP who would create
trouble. It was a total misreading of the true position. These people had been
thoroughly disillusioned with China and communism and would have been our
best inoculation against the virus of Maoism.
We are so much like the Chinese in the southern provinces in physical
appearance. We have the same cultural values, in attitudes towards relationship
between
the sexes, relations within the family, deference due to our elders and
other social norms regarding family and friends. But we are so different in our
outlook and view of the world and of our place in this world. Theirs is so huge a
country that they feel absolutely confident there will be a seat for them at the top
table once they have put themselves right, and it was only a matter of time. No
Chinese doubts their ultimate destiny after they have restored their civilisation,
the oldest in the world with 4,000 years of unbroken history. We, the migrants
who have cut our roots and transplanted ourselves on a different soil, in a very
different climate, lack this self-confidence. We have serious doubts about our
future, always wondering what fate has in store for us in an uncertain and fast-
changing world.
