Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity

Author(s): Allen Chun

Source: boundary 2, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer, 1996), pp. 111-138
Published by: Duke University Press
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Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as
Culture as Identity

Allen Chun

Nationalityat the Core, or, The Meaningof Modernity

It is said that China is the oldest extant civilizationin the world and
that its populationconstitutes one-quarter of humanity.Something so well
entrenched demographically,territorially,politically,and historicallyshould
be anything but an uncertain entity. It is easy, thus, to identify something
called "Chinese culture and society." Its political presence in the modern
worldsystem is incontestable, and the amount of intellectualdiscourse de-
voted to the study of China continues to filllibraries.In short, there is much
to suggest that the very idea of China is an unambiguous or unquestionable
entity. But what is so unambiguous about China that makes it an unques-
tioned object of gazing? What is the nature of Chineseness, and who are
the Chinese? Finally,who is reallyspeaking here?
Something called "China"unquestionably exists, but, more impor-
tantly, there is a multitude of expressions to denote different aspects of
China and Chineseness. While the Western term for China appears to ac-

Chinese terms have been providedin the Wade-Gilessystem of romanization.

2 23:2, 1996.Copyright
boundary ? 1996by DukeUniversity
Press.
112 boundary2 / Summer1996

centuate the unity of a civilizationbrought about by the Ch'in empire, Chi-

nese terms for China and Chinese, on the other hand, suggest other kinds
of associations, some of which are historicallyor regionally specific. The
term chung-kuo, China's rendition of itself as "the middle kingdom,"has
existed since antiquity,and the term chung-kuojen is commonly used nowa-
days to denote Chinese people who speak chung-kuo hua or some form of
Chinese language. When Chinese wish to talk about themselves as a uni-
fied people belonging to a unifiedculture, however,they referto themselves
as "people of the Han (dynasty)"(han-jen), as belonging to a Han culture
that originated in the region of the Han River.1The process of sinicization is
one of being Han-ized (han-hua), and the ethnic minoritieswithinterritorial
China are likewise set apart as being non-Han. Southern Chinese, in con-
trast, typicallythose from Fukien and Kwangtungwho constitute the vast
majorityof "overseas Chinese" in places such as Southeast Asia, express
their Chineseness by saying that they are "people of the T'ang (dynasty)"
(t'ang-jen)who speak "T'anglanguage" (t'ang-hua)and have deep attach-
ments toward a homeland called "the land of T'ang"(t'ang-shan). Perhaps
not coincidentally,Chinatown is called "street of the T'ang people" (tang-
jen chieh). Nonetheless, the historical metaphor cannot be carried too far.
When speakers refer to t'ang-shan, it usually means the China of one's
home village and not that of the imperialcourt; likewise, t'ang-hua simply
means "Chinese,"which, because it can referto any Chinese, does not sit
well with Mandarinspeakers who claim to speak chung-wen.2
The point of the matter is that terms are important,not only for what
they mean semantically but for what they mean pragmatically,as well--that
is to say, given the speaker's intended usage. Moreover,meanings change
in spite of the fixed character of the words themselves; thus, the authority
of language can be understood not only as a function of a speaker's im-
plicitinterpretationbut also as a purposive strategic act. The Chinese may

1. See Steven Sage, AncientSichuanand the Unificationof China(Albany:State Univer-

sity of New YorkPress, 1992),foran analysisof the culturaloriginsof the Hanempire.
2. As for standardcolloquialMandarin,it is interestingto note the evolutionof Chinese
terms, for it reflectsthe changingpragmaticfunctionsof language in the nationalimagi-
nation. In Taiwan,Mandarinis called kuo-yj, "the nationallanguage,"followingearly
Republicanusage, which is itselfa substitutefor kuan-hua,"thelanguageof officials"in
imperialtimes. Inthe PRC, kuo-yOj became p'u-t'unghua, "thecommonlanguage,"as if
which literally
to stress its universalityamong citizens. In Singapore,the use of hua-yOj,
means "thelanguage of ethnic Chinese,"serves to emphasize its nonpoliticalnatureas
a mode of communication.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 113

attributetheir ethnic unityto the Han, but, in fact, the peoples consolidated
by the Han empire were certainly not ethnically homogeneous. Likewise,
the term chung-kuo (middle kingdom), as well as the concurrent notion of
Chineseness as hua-hsia, predates the Chinese empire, but the centripetal
unityemanating fromthis civilizingcenter was something that in predynas-
tic times actually united differentpolities occupied by diverse peoples who
had inherentlydifferentlanguages, beliefs, and practices-in short, different
ethnic cultures.3If we, on the other hand, view China as an unambiguous
politicalentity and Chineseness as a feature shared by ethnic Chinese on
the basis of discrete traits and traditions,it is really because we are influ-
enced by a homogeneous notion of culturethat is essentially modern, if not
national, in origin.4
The state of mind characteristic of Chinese ethnicity and civiliza-
tion in the past often transcended the hard and fast boundaries that we
usually associate with the standardized dominion and sovereign totalityof
the nation-state. This explains the persistent imagination of an unbroken
historical continuitydespite repeated barbarianinvasions, the rise and fall
of dynasties, and the absorption of alien religions. Priorto the Nationalist
Revolution of 1911,there was no cognate notion in Chinese of society or
nation as a politywhose boundary was synonymous with that of an ethnic
group. Many terms were transplanted directly from Japanese.5 Until the
mid-nineteenth century, it was unnaturalfor Chinese to call other ethnic

3. Hu Hou-hs0an,in "Lunwu-fangkuan-nienchi chung-kuoch'eng-weichih ch'i-yoan

(On the concept of wu-fangand originof the term 'middlekingdom')," in Chia-kuhsjeh
shang-shih lun-ts'ung(Shanghai:Shanghai Shu-tien,1985), 368, argues that although
chung-kuowas a term coined by the Chou, it originatedfrom chung-shangto denote
the alliance of states that traced theirculturalfoundationsto the Shang dynasty.Thus,
Ts'ai Hs(eh-hai, in "Wan-min kuei-tsung:min-tsute kou-ch'engyOrung-ho(Backto the
roots:The constitutionand amalgamationof [Chinese]ethnicity)," in Chung-kuowen-hua
hsin lun(New perspectiveson Chinese culture),ed. HsingI-t'ien(Taipei:Lien-chingch'u-
pan shih-yehkung-ssu,1981),139-40, maintainsthat bothchung-kuoand hua-hsiawere
interchangeable.
4. The implicitsinocentrismof this middlekingdomstemmed fromtheirown perceived
separationfromthe barbarianssituatedon the outside,or periphery,of theirworld.See
WangErh-min,"Chung-kuoming-ch'engsu-y(an chi ch'ichin-taich'Oan-shih(Theorigin
of the term'middlekingdom'and its moderninterpretation)," Chung-huawen-huafu-hsing
yijeh-k'an5, no. 8 (1985):2, foran extendeddiscussion.
5. See Han Chin-ch'unand LiYi-fu,"Han-wen'min-tsu'i-tz'ute ch'u-hsienchi ch'i shih-
yung ch'ing-k'uang(The appearanceof the Chinese term min-tsuand its circumstances
of usage),"Min-tsuyen-chiu2 (1984):36-43.
114 boundary2 / Summer1996

groups by any name other than "barbarians."Only in the early years of the
Republic did intellectuals begin to associate chung-hua min-tsu (Chinese
as an ethnic category) with chung-kuojen (citizens of China).6This asso-
ciation was meant to consolidate the diverse constellation of people within
territorialChina into a single nation. Moreover, Chineseness in terms of
material culture, ethnicity,or residence was never clearly defined.7 Thus,
the Chinese renditionof nationalismas the "principleof a common people"
(min-tsu chu-i) implicitlyunderscored the novelty of a bounded citizenryas
the distinctivefeature of nationhood (in contrast, for example, to the purely
institutionalfeatures of the nation-state).8This point was reiteratedearly on
by Sun Yat-sen, the revolutionaryhero and father of the Republic,who, in a
famous phrase, criticizedthe traditionalChinese polity as being "a dish of
loose sand" (i p'an san-sha).
Since the very idea of (a national) identity is new, any notions of
culture invoked in this regard, no matter how faithfullythey are grounded
in the past, have to be constructions by nature. In the end, they conform
to a new kind of boundedness in order to create bonds of horizontalsoli-
darity between equal, autonomous individuals constitutive of the empty,
homogeneous social space of the nation in ways that could not have existed
in a hierarchical,cosmological past.9
Because it is constructed, culture is not just imagined but autho-
rized and institutionalizedas well. Discourse throughexplicitacts of writing
is one of the prime vehicles for conveying the imaginative nature of cul-

6. Accordingto P'eng Ying-min,in "Kuan-yiwo-kuo min-tsukai-nienli-shihte ch'u-pu

k'ao-ch'a(A preliminary analysis of the historyof the Chinese concept of min-tsu),"Min-
tsu yen-chiu2 (1985):9-12, full-fledgeddefinitionsof the nationas people (min-tsu)and
of nationalismas the principleof a commonpeople (min-tsuchu-i)were spelled out ex-
plicitlyby LiangCh'i-ch'aoand Sun Yat-senand were laterinfluencedby foreignwritings,
such as those of Joseph Stalin.
7. See DavidY. H. Wu, "TheConstructionof Chinese and Non-ChineseIdentities," Dae-
dalus 120, no. 2 (1991):162.
8. This is similarto what RichardG. Fox, in his introductionto NationalIdeologiesand
the Productionof NationalCultures(Washington:AmericanAnthropological Association,
1990),3, calls "ideologiesof peoplehood."
9. Ernest Gellner'sargumentconcerningthe novel role of culturein the nation-state,in
Nationsand Nationalism(Oxford:BasilBlackwell,1983),and BenedictAnderson'sfocus,
in ImaginedCommunities:Reflectionson the Originsand Spread of Nationalism(Lon-
don:Verso,1983),on the ramifications of a commoncolloquiallanguage in the promotion
of radicallynew time-space notionsin an emergingnationalism,are especiallyrelevantin
this regard.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness115

turalconstructions,and, in the finalanalysis,it is importantto understand

how culturaldiscourseserves to rationalizea particularutopianvisionof
the polity.The factualsubstance of cultureis, in this regard,less impor-
tantthanthe rhetoricalformsit takes. Thatis to say, behindthe message
itself,it is moreimportantto knowwho is reallyspeaking,howstatements
are producedand disseminated,howthey relateto otherdiscourses,and,
finally,howthey become systematizedand institutionalized, if at all. Inthe
Chineseworld,culturaldiscourseconstitutesan appropriate"spaceof dis-
persion,"in MichelFoucault'sterms, for understandinghow ethnicity(as
nationality)is constructed.10 Culturaldiscoursein this regardincludesnot
onlysymbolsof nationalidentity,icons of patrioticfervorand otherthings;
moreimportantly, itinvolvesthe authority
ofstatementsaboutsharedvalues
embodiedin language,ethnicity,and custom,as wellas sharedmythsen-
coded as genres of knowledge,such as history,ideology,and beliefs. In
the contextof the state, such discoursesrarelyemanatedirectlyfromthe
peoplethemselvesbutare articulatedby the state, intellectuals,and other
vested interests,all of whomclaimnaturally to speak on behalfof "society
as a whole."The self-effacingcharacterof culturaldiscourse,in spite of
its obviousauthorialnature,is preciselywhatmakes identityappearto be
a value-freeconstruct,when in actualityit is quitethe opposite.As Philip
Corriganand DerekSayer have perceptivelynoted,the productionof dis-
course is an integralpartof the state's exercisein legitimation; or, as they
put it,"the state never Bernard
stops talking."1 S. Cohn has arguedalso that
the rise of the state broughtaboutformsof knowledgethat necessitated
incessant documentationin the genre of reports,investigations,commis-
sions, and statisticsrelatingto the accountability of its citizensin various
domains,such as finance,industry,trade,health,demography, crime,edu-
cation,transportation, and agriculture.12
The need of the state to knowand
documentformsthe basis of its capacityto govern.Thewillof knowledgeto
powerultimatelyprovidesthe state a basis on whichto defineand classify
spaces, makeseparationsbetweenpublicand privatespheres,demarcate
frontiers,standardizelanguageand personalidentity,and licensethe legiti-

10. MichelFoucault,"Politicsandthe Studyof Discourse,"in TheFoucaultEffect:Studies

in Governmentality,ed. ColinGordon(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1991),55.
11.PhilipCorriganand DerekSayer, The GreatArch:EnglishState Formationas Cultural
Revolution(Oxford:Basil Blackwell,1985),3.
12. BernardS. Cohn,"TheAnthropology of a ColonialState and Its Formsof Knowledge"
(paper presented at the WennerGren Conferenceentitled"Tensionsof Empire,"Mijas,
Spain, 5-12 May1988).
 2 / Summer
116 boundary 1996

macy of certainactivitiesover others.Culture'sinstitutional linkto power

then makes all formsof knowledgethat contributeto the constructionof
identitypotentialhegemonictoolswithinthe state'sregimeof "disinterested
domination." 13
The fact that culturalnarrativesdifferin differentChinese political
contexts is a testamentto the possibilityof differentinterpretations and
politicaluses of Chineseness. The Kuomintang (KMT),or Nationalist,re-
gime on Taiwanhas, on the whole,depicteditselfas the guardianof "tra-
ditionalChinese culture."This notionof guardianshiphas been reflected
not only in its conservativeattitudetowardthe preservationof Chinese
language,thought,and civilizationbutalso in its proprietary ownershipof
various"nationaltreasures"(kuo-pao),whichincludeartifactsof highcul-
ture,such as those belongingto the NationalPalaceMuseum,classictexts,
and objectsof (historicalor archaeological)antiquitythatwere productsof
this civilization.At the core of this traditionalChinese identityis the con-
cept of hua-hsia.By invokinga sense of Chineseness (hua)that is rooted
in the sharedcivilizationof the first(mythical)dynasty(hsia), hua-hsiais,
in essence, a code wordforbothpoliticallegitimacyand historicaldestiny.
Specificallyinoppositionto the People'sRepublicof China(PRC),hua-hsia
representsa metaphoricaldefense of a traditional past thatcontrastswith
the extremeradicalismof a communistworldview.Withinthe setting of a
modernworldsystem, hua-hsiabecomes an icon of culturaluniqueness
and resistanceto Westernimperialism.Finally,in Taiwan,officiallytermed
Republicof China(ROC),hua-hsiaserves to anchorTaiwaneseregional
traditionwithinthe Chinesenation-stateas a whole.14
Thedetermination of the KMTregimeto promotea cultureof the Na-
tionalistpolityis reflectedinthe greatlengthsto whichexplicitculturalpolicy
attemptedto systematicallydefine Chinese traditionby invokingConfu-
cianvalues,by narrating history,and by institutionalizing
politicalideology.15

13. See PhilipCorriganand DerekSayer,"From'TheBody Politic'to 'TheNationalInter-

est': EnglishState Formationin Comparativeand HistoricalPerspective(An Argument
ConcerningPoliticallyOrganizedSubjection)"(paper presented at the Symposiumon
Cultureand Colonialism:Deploymentsof Powerand Resistance, CaliforniaInstituteof
Technology,Pasadena, Calif.,1987), 100. The authorspointto the state as an explicit
locus of regulatorypower,followingthe insightsof MichelFoucault,Disciplineand Punish:
The Birthof the Prison(New York:Pantheon,1977).
14. For a fullerdiscussion of these issues in postwarTaiwan,see Allen Chun, "From
Nationalismto Nationalizing:CulturalImaginationand State Formationin PostwarTai-
wan,"AustralianJournalof Chinese Affairs31 (1994):49-69.
15. As Huang Ch(n-chieh, in "Confucianismin PostwarTaiwan,"Proceedings of the
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 117

The fact that the government felt compelled to orchestrate social sentiment
through mass movements suggests that culture was hardlysomething that
could be taken for granted.16In the long run, when ethnic consciousness
is used to construct culturaldiscourses that in turn function as the basis
for inculcatingnational identityin both thought and practice, it is difficultto
distinguish the various dimensions of politicalorthodoxy,social value, and
life routine,all of which serve to engender "Chineseness."17
On the mainland, one can find essentially the same degree of ob-
session with the promotionof a national consciousness constructed on a
synonymity between the same kinds of cultural ingredients, namely eth-
nicity,language, and history,but with significantnuances. While icons such
as the panda and the Great Wall serve to epitomize in superficial terms
China's uniqueness and the existence of potentially strong rallyingpoints
for collective solidarity,the continual politicizationof culture reflects, more
importantly,the relevance of abstract formulationsof identityto state for-
mation and national survival as a whole.18Duringthe period leading up to,
and culminatingin, the CulturalRevolution,politicalcorrectness and ideo-

NationalScience Council,PartC: Humanitiesand Social Sciences 2, no. 2 (1992):218-

20, has noted, Confucianacademic discourse in postwarTaiwanwas fundamentallya
search for culturalidentity,withfactualinvestigationbeing a secondary concern. Foran
interpretationof the constant metamorphosisof "Nationalist" ideology that involveda
sophisticated rewritingof culture,thought,and ethics in the practiceof everyday life,
see Allen Chun, "AnOrientalOrientalism:The Paradoxof Traditionand Modernityin
NationalistTaiwan,"Historyand Anthropology9, no. 1 (1995):1-30.
16. See TaiwanProvincialGovernment,Chung-huawen-huafu-hsingyon-tungshih nien
chi-nienchuan-chi(Commemorativeessays on the tenth anniversaryof the culturalre-
naissance movement)(Taipei:Committeeforthe Promotionof the Chinese CulturalRe-
naissance Movement,1978), for an officialrecordof activitiespertainingto the cultural
renaissance movement(wen-huafu-hsingyijn-tung).
17.The era of culturalrenaissance,whichbegan in 1967to counterthe culturalrevolution
on the mainland,was followedby a phase of culturalreconstruction(wen-huachien-she),
whichwas the last of twelve areas of nationaldevelopmentcited by ChiangChing-kuo
on 23 September1977.Culturalcenters were created in each of some twenty-oddtown-
ships to organizeactivitiespertainingto the disseminationand protectionof localculture.
Moreover,a committeeforculturalreconstruction was createdat the nationallevelto deal
withactivitiespertainingto the finearts and otheraspects of expressiveor hauteculture,
east and west.
18. ArthurWaldron,in "TheGreatWallMyth:ItsOriginsand Role in ModernChina,"Yale
Journalof Criticism2, no. 1 (1989):67-90, notes that the elevationof the GreatWallto
the status of de facto nationalsymbolinthe PRCwas a late invention.Beforenationalists
such as Sun Yat-senand LuHsOnused the GreatWallas patrioticrallyingpoints,it was
a phenomenonusuallyassociated withthe excesses of despotic emperors.
118 boundary2 / Summer1996

logical purificationpromptedwholesale rejections of traditionalthought and

practices.19In subsequent periods, however, conscious efforts by the state
to define the nature of Chinese national identity made the archivalization
of historical knowledge and ethnic classification prioritiescompatible with
socialist orthodoxy.More than in the case of Taiwan,archaeology became
an importanttool in China's search for its culturalroots and in politicallegiti-
macy as a nation. In fact, the massive energy devoted to archivalizationof
the past, as evidenced by the growth of government bureaus dealing with
culturalartifacts and historicalresearch, would appear out of proportionin
contrast to other modernizingcountries. The existence of ethnic minorities
withinChina's national borders, on the other hand, created particularprob-
lems for reconciling notions of ethnicity in relation to national identity.For
the most part,the government adopted a Stalinist policy of multiculturalism,
with the Han ethnic majoritypositioned at the core of a familyof nations.20
The criteriaof traditionalpractices and material customs applied to distin-
guish ethnic groups, however, made the very notion of ethnic identitywithin
a culturaltaxonomy problematic,especially in cases of historicallyknown
minoritygroups that had been undergoing a long process of sinicization.21
In this regard, the need to define ethnicity according to the kind of hard-
and-fast rules characteristic of the boundedness of a modern nation-state
ultimatelyfabricatedethnic divisions that did not exist in the minds and lives
of the people themselves, while at the same time made culturalobjectifica-
tion a normativepractice in the state's institutionalroutine.As in the case of
Taiwan,historyand ethnicitythus combined to produce (a national) identity
in which they were, in fact, nothing more than imagined constructions by
the state to define the ethos of its own modernity.
In the broader intellectual debates over national identityduring the
post-Cultural Revolutionera, ideological positions often vacillated between
attempts to revive societal consciousness through metaphoricalappeals to

19. RobertaMartin,in "TheSocializationof Childrenin Chinaand on Taiwan:An Analy-

sis of ElementarySchool Textbooks,"ChinaQuarterly62, no. 2 (1975):244-49, shows
how differencesin politicalideology between the mainlandand Taiwanhave been sys-
tematicallywritteninto school children'stextbooknarrativesand fables. Contraryto the
way Confucianethics have been used to legitimizeNationalistideologythroughtraditional
metaphorsof a family-basedstate, the People's Republichas opted to subordinatethe
familyto the greatergood of society,as ideologicallyprescribed.
20. Fei Hsiao-t'ung,"EthnicIdentificationin China,"in Towarda People's Anthropology,
ed. Fei Hsiao-t'ung(Bejing:New WorldPress, 1981).
21. See DavidY. H. Wu, "ChineseMinorityPolicyand the Meaningof MinorityCulture:
The Exampleof Bai in Yunnan,China,"HumanOrganization49, no. 1 (1990):1-13.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 119

historical-culturalroots and countercampaigns to ground nationalist sen-

timent withinthe context of a renewed socialist humanism.22 The govern-
ment's campaign against spiritualpollutionin the mid-1980s sparked intel-
lectual debates over the nature of culture,usually referredto in the literature
as "culturefever."23These discourses broughtforthdiverse viewpoints con-
cerning the relevance of various aspects of Chinese and Western culture
to the construction of a Chinese socialist state that became polarized in
1988 with the airing of the controversialTV documentary River Elegy (he-
shang). By criticizingthe backwardness of Chinese civilizationbased on
the YellowRivervalley, River Elegy was a call for the construction of a new
identitybased on the progressive values of an emerging Pacific region and
the rejection of a traditionallybased modernity.Fromthe rhetoric,it would
appear that culture's intrinsicsubstance has been less importantthan its
extrinsic politicalrelevance.

Decolonizing Chineseness: FromDiasporato CulturalChina

I raise the examples of Taiwanand mainlandChina to show that dis-
courses of culture are really attempts by the state to grasp and rationalize
the natureof its own modernity.By invokingChineseness, they have not only
redefined it but also given it a new kindof boundedness. Inthis regard, I be-
lieve that the modern nation-state offers a more useful pointof departurefor
understandingthe nature of identityconstructions than prevailingnotions of
cultureper se. Challenges to the authorityof culture,largelythroughappeal
to the voices of the colonized, marginalized, and silent others, are really
reactions to the homogeneous threat of identity imposed by the nation-

22. MerleGoldman,PerryLink,and Su Wei,"China'sIntellectualsin the Deng Era:Loss

of Identitywiththe State,"in China'sQuest forNationalIdentity,ed. L. Dittmerand S. S.
Kim(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress, 1993).The authorsarguethatthis intellectualtran-
sition comprisedthree stages, the firstfrom 1977 to 1982, characterizedby a general
tendencytowardrestorationof an earliergoldenera of socialism;the second from1982to
1988, whichwitnessed experimentswithChinesetraditionand Westernideologies,even-
tuallypromptinga campaignagainst spiritualpollutionand the "culturefever"debates;
and the thirdprecipitatedby the documentaryRiverElegy (he-shang),whichled directly
to the democracymovementof 1989 and its bloodysuppression.
23. GeremieBarme,in "TheChinese VelvetPrison:Culturein the 'NewAge,' 1976-89,"
Issues and Studies 25, no. 8 (1989): 54-79, translates wen-hua re, instead, as "cul-
ture mania."WangHe's "Traditional Cultureand Modernization: A Reviewof the General
Situationof CulturalStudies in Chinain RecentYears,"Social Sciences in China4 (1986):
9-30, providesan overviewof the literatureduringthis period.
120 boundary2 / Summer1996

state. Butto what extent do disenfranchised voices fromthe peripheryoffer

alternativeconceptions of identityor of "Chineseness"?
Hong Kong represents a distinctive variationon the theme of "Chi-
neseness." The formationof culture in the postwar era was, in several ways,
the productof its liminalityvis-a-vis the PRC, the ROC, and Western main-
streams. As inhabitantsof a Britishcolony ceded by China in 1860, the pre-
dominantlyChinese populationof Hong Kong had no independent national
identityto speak of. Consistent with its colonial status, the Britishadminis-
tered Hong Kong in accordance with Western judicialconventions. Yet, in
spite of its colonial status, there was no question as to the culturalidentity
of its inhabitants.Before 1950, most people just called themselves Chinese;
there was no notion of being Hong Kongers. The border between Hong
Kong and China was open, and there was littleto differentiateHong Kong
from foreign enclaves in other treaty ports. The dualistic nature of Hong
Kong'scolonial society was, then, a functionof the way in which the British
demarcated the public and private spheres. There was a strict separation
between official culture, which was carried out in the medium of English,
and indigenous culture, which was rooted in Chinese tradition.Social inter-
course was segregated along ethnic lines, and the government did littleto
cultivate among the populace any sense of national affinityto Britain.The
rest was a matterof local custom and lifestyle,towardwhichthe government
adopted a policy of noninterference.
A separate Hong Kong identitybegan to emerge only withthe widen-
ing riftbetween Nationalistand CommunistChina,which turned Hong Kong
initially into a battlegroundfor contesting "national"identities. These cold
war tensions eventually catalyzed Hong Kong'stransformationinto a free-
market port, which was a deliberate policy initiativeby the colonial govern-
ment. A majorconsequence of this change in social terms was the evolution
of a class-based society, which had a profoundimpacton the rise of popular
culture in Hong Kong in later decades, especially in the absence of direct
political control by the state.24 In effect, the colonial government took an
active role in promoting economic growth in Hong Kong during the early
postwar era, not just for the sake of modernization itself, by deliberately

Absorptionof PoliticsinHongKong:
24. See AmbroseKing'sdiscussionin "Administrative
Emphasis on the Grass Roots Asian
Level," Survey15, no. 5 (1975):422-39, which is
quite relevantto the common perceptionof an innately"apathetic"politicalculture in
Hong Kong,especially duringthe 1970s.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 121

steering Hong Kong away from ongoing nationalistconflicts that potentially

destabilized the colonial regime.25
From 1967 to 1984, this atmosphere of utilitariangrowth, designed
to minimizenationalistsentiment, even to the point of politicalindifference,
contributedto the rise of a distinctlyapoliticalHong Kongculture.One obvi-
ous consequence of this development was the advent of a media-oriented
popularculture, which was financed by large capitalist interests, not unlike
Max Horkheimerand Theodor Adorno's culture industry,which neatly re-
produced the utilitarianvalues of a free-marketsociety.26The emergence of
artisticgenres such as kungfu movies and absurdist comedies all had roots
in this self-propelled cultureindustry,which was insulatedfrom, and indiffer-
ent to, the politics of identity.27
The promotionof utilitarianismas ethos and
life routinealso brokedown rigiddistinctionsbetween Chinese and Western
culture.Thus, Hong Kong'shybridculture,which seemed effortlessly to fuse
East and West, was broughtabout by unrestrainedcapitalism's wholesale
demystificationof those culturalbarriersfostered by an earlier"colonialism."
In short, the emergence of postwar Hong Kong "culture"was the
product of what Gerald R. McMaster would call a zone of "in-between-
ness.'28 It occupied the vacuous social space made possible by its dis-
placement fromthe Chinese politicalmainstreamas well as by its caste-like
status inthe colonial system. Hong Kong'sisolationfromthe nationalculture
invokedon both sides of the straits allowed for a peculiarsense of Chinese-
ness to emerge that radicallydifferedfromthe assumed synonymityof one

25. Law Wing-sang, "Discourseof Crisis and Stability:The Possibility/Impossibility of

Communityand Democracyin HongKong"(paperpresentedat the Conferenceon Cul-
turalCriticism1992, Chinese Universityof HongKong,HongKong,29 Dec.-9 Jan. 1992),
5. The authorattributesthe government'spolicyof promotingeconomic growththrough
administrativeefficiencyand autocraticcontrolto a strategyor rhetoricof "managerial-
corporatism."
26. Max Horkheimerand TheodorW. Adorno,"The CultureIndustry," in The Dialec-
tic of Enlightenment,ed. Max Horkheimerand TheodorW. Adorno(New York:Con-
tinuum,1972).
27. ChanHoiman,"Comedyand Mediation: Chartingthe CulturalMentalityof HongKong"
(paper presented at the Conferenceon CulturalCriticism,Chinese Universityof Hong
Kong,HongKong,29 Dec.-9 Jan. 1992).
28. Gerald R. McMaster,"BorderZones: The 'Injun-uity' of Aesthetic Tricks,"Cultural
Studies 9, no. 1 (1995):74-90. Fora differentperspectiveon the predicamentof colo-
nialand postcolonialrepresentationin HongKong,see Rey Chow,"BetweenColonizers:
HongKong'sPostcolonialSelf-Writing in the 1990s,"Diaspora2, no. 2 (1992):151-70.
122 boundary2 / Summer1996

family,one people, one civilization,and one polity cultivated elsewhere by

rejectingany intrinsicrelationshipbetween ethnicityand nationality.Its very
"Chineseness" underlines the semantic arbitrarinessof national "culture."
The Chinese diaspora, or what has been usually referredto in the
literatureas overseas Chinese, represents an alternative to a sinocentric
view of things, but it is necessary to understandhow ethnicityhas been con-
stituted and deployed as identity.The term overseas Chinese (hua-ch'iao)
is a modern phrase that refers to the ethnic Chinese who live outside the
national borders of China. Chinese abroad who use this term to character-
ize themselves, usually in speaking to homeland Chinese or foreigners, are
essentially identifyingthemselves as ethnic Chinese who reside abroad.
Strictly speaking, this term has nothing to do with one's nationality and
does not conflict with the usual terms for Chinese, such as t'ang-jen. And
even though the term itself is modern, invoked to show one's sentimental
attachment to a homeland, it does not detract fromthe fact that there have
always been Chinese living overseas in premodern times who have had
particularnotions of theirChineseness.29 Before the twentiethcentury,there
was little need for a concept of overseas Chinese, not just because there
was no concept of Chinese nationhood to galvanize ethnicity into marked,
bounded groups but also because most Chinese who lived abroad, with
some majorexceptions, were sojourners who had intentions of eventually
returningto China. Despite their obvious attachment to a Chinese home-
land, there was probablylittleelse to unite them as Chinese, except in con-
trast to non-Chinese. In all other regards, Chinese tended to form regional
communities, each speaking mutually unrelated dialects. Their degree of
contact with other Chinese and non-Chinese was, strictlyspeaking, a stra-
tegic consideration based on occupational and political necessity that did
not involvesacrificingtheir own sense of identity.Success in one's occupa-
tion and in the exigencies of everyday social intercourse demanded fluency
in several dialects and languages, as well as a familiaritywith native cus-
toms. The best examples of this come from the generations of Chinese
traders in Southeast Asia. Especially in colonial times, their role as com-

29. Wang Gungwu,"TheStudy of Chinese Identitiesin Southeast Asia,"in Changing

Attitudesof the Southeast Asian Chinese Since WorldWarII(Hong Kong:Hong Kong
UniversityPress, 1988), 1. Forexample,Wangremarksthat "theChinese have neverhad
a concept of identity,only a concept of Chineseness, of being Chinese and of becoming
un-Chinese."Chineseness here refersto the attachmentthat individualsfeltto theirown
ethnichomelandand shouldbe distinguishedfromthe identityof belongingto a groupby
sharinga commonhistoryor tradition.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 123

pradorstended to enhance theirseparateness as an ethnic community,and

those who benefited from continued interactionwith people from China, in
the form of increased immigrationduringthe nineteenth century,were able
to maintainChinese culturaltraits.30In short, the multiculturalskills of Chi-
nese in this context served a functional role that was no differentfrom that
of other foreign traders, such as the Indiansand Arabs. On the other hand,
their degree of penetrationinto local society in terms of this interactionhad
littleto do with an innate sense of identityor separateness as a group and
was instead a functionof their politicalaccommodation by the host society.31
The difference between their ethnic disposition as characterized by
custom or language and their sense of identity as a bounded community
vis-a-vis others is importantfor understandingwhy Chinese overseas could
continue to claim to have a sense of ethnic Chineseness, regardless of
how deeply they were actually assimilated into indigenous society. The so-
journingnature of the Chinese in premodern times is an extreme example
wherein Chineseness represents both ethnicity and identity.The Perana-
kan Chinese of Malaysiaand Indonesia are an example, by way of contrast,
of people who are heavily indigenized in terms of ethnic lifestyle but still
"identify"themselves as Chinese. In his study of the Baba of Melaka, Tan
Chee-beng argues that although the Baba speak a Creolized version of
Malay,have intermarriedwith the natives, and have adopted many aspects
of local custom, they still identifythemselves as Chinese and as practicing
heterodox customs that are essentially Chinese in culturaloutlook.32I think
there is much to justifyagreeing with the Peranakans that they are essen-
tiallyChinese as long as we can reject our modern, essentially nationalistic

30. WangGungwu,in "AmongNon-Chinese,"Daedalus120, no. 2 (1991):139, pointsout,

quite correctly,that "formost of these merchantsand entrepreneurs,being Chinese had
nothingto do withbecomingcloser to China.Itwas a privateand domestic matteronly
manifestedwhen needed to strengthena business contactorto followan approvedpublic
convention."
31. At face value, G. WilliamSkinner'sconcern withchange and persistence in Chinese
culturein Southeast Asia, in "Changeand Persistence in Chinese CultureOverseas: A
Comparisonof Thailandand Java,"Journalof the South Seas Society 16 (1960):86-
100, deals with actual beliefs and practices;in fact, he is reallytalkingabout "identity,"
whereinassimilationreflectsa willingnessby Chinese to shed theirsense of difference,
and persistence of Chinese identityis a productof a rigidsystem of social stratification
that perpetuatesethnicseparation.
32. Tan Chee-beng, "Structureand Change: CulturalIdentityof the Baba of Melaka,"
Bijdragentot de Taal-,Land-en Volkenkunde 144, no. 2-3 (1988):297-314.
124 boundary2 / Summer1996

notions of identitybased on definitions of ethnicityauthorized by a cultural

mainstream.
The transformationof Chinese overseas into "overseas Chinese"
(hua-ch'iao) was, then, an expansion of Chinese nationalism abroad that
attempted to galvanize Chinese identityfrom what was once kin-centered,
dialect groups into a radically new "imagined community"reeducated in
standard Mandarinand the orthodox teachings of Chinese civilization.For
Chinese who had not severed ties with their homeland, this new sense of
identity could be seen as an extension of a primordialChineseness. For
those whose culturallifestyles had become largely assimilated or syncretic
in nature, this new kindof identitywas, instead, a source of alienation.
In recent years, a new kind of Chinese diaspora has appeared, in-
voking the banner of "culturalChina."Tu Wei-ming notes that the term
culturalChina was probablycoined in the past decade by concerned Chi-
nese intellectuals who were writing in overseas journals.33Nonetheless,
primarilydue to the efforts of Tu, who organized two special issues in Dae-
dalus in 1991 and 1993 devoted to the theme of "TheChanging Meaning of
Being Chinese Today,""culturalChina"has become a key phrase of sorts.
Although culturalChina consists of three cultural universes-the first en-
compassing societies populated predominantlyby ethnic Chinese, such as
mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore; the second covering
overseas Chinese communities;and the thirdconsisting of intellectuals and
professionals generally concerned with the Chinese world-in practice, it
refers to a single universe whose common interest in China transcends
national boundaries and discourses. Ina changing global environmentthat
has witnessed once patriotic overseas Chinese becoming more perma-
nently settled in their adopted countries and massive migrationof Chinese
professionals to the West, followed by the decline of the sinocentric core
as a sphere of influence, the question Tu ultimatelywishes to raise is not
just whether it is possible to conceive of the periphery as displacing the
center but, more specifically, whether there is a basis for a renewed sense
of "Chineseness," as prompted by the rise of Asia's four dragons and the
success of Chinese abroad, that might serve as models for a declining
center. In contrast to the strategy of multipleidentities generally character-
istic of Chinese overseas, Tu appears, instead, to be advocating a kind of
pan-national Islamic fundamentalism in the imagined community of exiled
Chinese intellectuals.
The experiences of the Chinese diaspora represent a wide spectrum

China:The Peripheryas Center,"Daedalus120,no.2 (1991):22.

33. TuWei-ming,"Cultural
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 125

of what may constitute possible reconstructions of Chineseness, insofar

as Chineseness has been traditionallyshaped by the authorityof a sino-
centric core. This is not to say, however,that these experiences are mutually
compatible. On the contrary,each is a local response to differenthistorico-
politicalcircumstances, not all of which has as its aim a reflection on "the
changing meaning of being Chinese today."While the diversityof "voices"
from the periphery can contribute to the decentering of the essentialism
and hegemony of culture, I would argue more strongly, on the other hand,
that one can hope to effectively decolonize the fiction of ethnicities autho-
rized and institutionalizedby the center only by questioning, at the same
time, the legitimacy of existing identities to bind people to prevailinginsti-
tutions and groups. In other words, more than just a corpus of traits made
conscious by ethnicity or rhetoricallyinvoked by culturaldiscourse, identity
is essentially a tie that binds people to communities throughwebs of power
and meaning.

Identity in the Politics and Semiotics of Self

Despite the fact that ethnicity and culture are often used as meta-
phorical constructs for identity,these three concepts are analyticallyquite
distinct. Ethniccharacteristics can be described in terms of the beliefs and
practices of everyday people, but the choice of what traits and traditions
should be included here are still problematic,to say the least. Culture is
generally considered to be a larger category of such traits and traditions
that may include those of ethnic origin but does not, by definition,have to.
Culture,in many premodern societies, such as China, was a kind of imag-
ined ideal that could transcend ethnic and politicalboundaries. Minorities
along China's frontierno doubt may have been ethnicallyautonomous, but,
culturally,they belonged to a single sinocentric universe, who in Chinese
eyes, at least, "came to be transformed"(lai-hua). The uneasy marriage
between ethnic consciousness and nationalcultureindicativeof many coun-
tries today, on the other hand, has been engendered largely by the paradox
that culture needs to draw on ethnic traditionsas a source of its legitimacy
while simultaneously transcending the "primordialsentiments" (in Clifford
Geertz's terms) associated withthose same traditions.34 Cases such as the
formerSoviet Union and Yugoslaviaappear to suggest the inevitabilityof a

34. CliffordGeertz, "The IntegrativeRevolution:PrimordialSentiments and CivilPoli-

tics in the New States,"in Old Societies and New States, ed. CliffordGeertz (Chicago:
Aldine,1963).
126 boundary2 / Summer1996

synonymity between ethnicity and nationhood, while cases such as Indo-

nesia and Papua New Guinea tend to suggest otherwise. There are even
cases where notions of ethnic and national culture coexist, albeit in some-
what uncertain terms. For example, Singapore has gone to great lengths
generally to ensure equality between the races and preservation of ethnic
culture, especially in matters of social and politicalsignificance, but I would
argue that, in the long run, ethnicity plays a minor,if not insignificant,role
in how Singaporean culture is defined. In contrast to both ethnicity and cul-
ture, however, identityis essentially a pragmatic,or subjective, relationship:
I identify,therefore I am. In premodern China, identificationwith culture
meant submission to the spectacle of kingshipand its cosmology of rites. In
the service of the modern nation-state, identity is rarelya question of who
one is as an individual,despite appearances to the contrary,but always, in
the first instance, of who we are as a group. Identityis also less about the
fact of who one is than about the perception of those facts. Because we
are dealing with perceptions, we should emphasize, as well, that they are
selective and strategic by nature. Discourses of identity produced by the
state or culturalmainstream always make claims about the nature of iden-
tity as though they are based on naturalfacts, when, in actuality,they are
just claims, or representations, that need to be constantly legitimized. By
choosing to identify,individualsare dealing, then, with a prioricategories
about who they are supposed to be as persons and how they should relate
to others in the group. This imagined communion with autonomous others
is assumed and easily explains the attention culturaldiscourses devote to
shared values and common lifestyles.
At the level of popular discourse, it is not surprising to learn that
people have generally been more concerned with discovering who they
"really"are and less with questioning the existing categories and the way in
which these categories have framed the discourse. Thus, people in Taiwan
have recently discovered that they are Taiwanese and not just Chinese;
people in Hong Kong have discovered that they are Chinese and not Hong-
kongese; Chinese in Singapore have discovered that Chineseness means
speaking Mandarin(hua-yO) and practicing government-sanctioned cus-
toms; while other Chinese overseas have discovered that they have mul-
tiple identities. Each of these transformationsis rooted in local contexts of
power-in-meaningand meaning-in-powerthat cannot be encompassed by
universaldefinitionsof "Chineseness."35Inorder to deconstruct these local

35. Itis interestingto note the increaseduse of hua among Chinese to denote a depoliti-
cized notionof Chineseness. Thus, Chinese are increasinglyreferringto themselves as
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 127

struggles for power and meaning, however, one must question these con-
structions of Chineseness and locate their source in the practice of social
groups and politicalinstitutions.
Multivocalitybrought about by empowering the marginal,the silent
others, and the dispossessed represents one obvious avenue for directly
challenging the traditionalauthoritarianismof culturaldiscourse. The emer-
gence of Taiwanese nationalismcan be seen in this regard more accurately
as a resistance to KMTChinese hegemony than as a sudden rediscovery
of an indigenous consciousness, just as other movements to recognize the
rightof native peoples everywhere to narrate represents an attempt to de-
colonize the authorityof the state and the scientific enterprise to speak on
their behalf. Empowermentthrough multivocalityis, in this sense, not simply
an act of political decentering but, more precisely, a process of making
concrete the reality of identities represented by a possible multiplicityof
interests and positions. Given the a prioriembeddedness of discourse in
the institutionsof legitimation,however, I would also add that such permis-
sion to narrate becomes effective only when accompanied by changes in
the structureof power.
The emergence of a "Greater China" is a noteworthy example
wherein the broad dissemination of youth and informationcounterculture
followingthe liberalizationof the media has contributedto the erosion of the
state's authorityto define culturaluniformityby multiplyingpoints of resis-
tance.36Needless to say, the phenomenon itself is a coalescence of many
complex political,economic, and culturalfactors prompted by the transna-
tional flow of capital and goods between Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China,
withinwhich the spread of transnationalChinese popularculture is only one
such commodity.37Ina comparative perspective, I wish to suggest here that
the reason why popular culture in Hong Kong, moral education in Taiwan,
and filmmedia on the mainlandmay serve as potentialgrounds forthe con-

hua-jenspeaking hua-yuj,which is, incidentally,Singapore'sterm for Mandarin,in con-

trast to kuo-yQj
(nationallanguage) in Taiwanand p'u-t'unghua (commonlanguage)on
the mainland,as ifto accent its purelyethnicnature.
36. See, forexample,HarryHarding,"TheConceptof GreaterChina:Themes, Variations
and Reservations,"ChinaQuarterly136 (1993):660-86, fora discussionof the concept,
as well as LynnWhiteand Li Cheng, "ChinaCoast Identities:Regional,National,and
Global,"in China'sQuest for NationalIdentity,ed. LowellDittmerand Samuel S. Kim
(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress, 1993),fora comparisonof regionaland globalidentities
in HongKong,Taiwan,and Kwangtung.
37. See Thomas B. Gold, "GowithYourFeelings:Hong and TaiwanPopularCulturein
GreaterChina,"ChinaQuarterly136 (1993):907-25.
128 boundary2 / Summer1996

struction of alternative identities has to do mostly with their traditionalrole

in the state's dissemination of culturaldiscourse, and not just because they
happen to be sites for the colonially oppressed.38 In other words, cultural
discourses and identities are not simply written;they are usually routinized
withthe fullforce of dissemination throughthe media, education, and other
public domains. In a decentered global culturaleconomy, the dynamism of
an unregulated market is perhaps a direct threat to the abilityof monolithic
regimes to maintaintotalizing, homogeneous societies.
In recent years, globalization has brought about radical changes in
how we perceive boundaries of community and place in ways that have
profoundlyaffected the politics and semiotics of self. ArjunAppadurai,for
instance, has noted that, in addition to the constant tension between cul-
tural homogenization and cultural heterogenization intrinsicto globaliza-
tion, there have been significantdisjuncturesbetween ethnoscapes, media-
scapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes.39 The flow of people,
images, technology, capital, and ideologies withinthe late capitalist cultural
economy has, in effect, created a web of complex relationships. Different
societies are thus characterized by different sorts of flows and disjunc-
tures. LindaBasch et al. have emphasized the disruptiveconsequences of
changing ethnoscapes, in the form of deterritorialization,mass migrations,
and diasporic identification,on the bounded ideology of the modern nation
and its perceived homogeneity of culturalidentity,40 while Ulf Hannerz has
noted that the same globalizing trends have contributedelsewhere to the
increasing demise of the modern nation-state.41
Stuart Hall emphasizes quite rightlythat cultural identity is less a
matter of "being"than of "becoming"and that, as unstable points of identi-
fication or suture, they are subject to the continuous play of history,culture,
and power ratherthan grounded in the recovery of a past.42Or, as James

38. See AllenChun,"Discoursesof Identityin the ChangingSpaces of PublicCulturein

Taiwan,Hong Kongand Singapore,"Theory,Cultureand Society 13, no. 1 (1996):51-75.
39. ArjunAppadurai,"Disjuncture and Differencein the GlobalCulturalEconomy,"Public
Culture2, no. 2 (1990):1-24.
40. LindaBasch, Nina Glick Schiller,and CristinaSzanton Blanc, Nations Unbound:
TransnationalProjects, PostcolonialPredicamentsand Deterritorialized Nation-States
(Amsterdam:Gordonand Breach,1994).
41. Ulf Hannerz,"TheWitheringAwayof the Nation:An Afterword," Ethnos58, no. 3-4
(1993): 377-91.
42. Stuart Hall,"CulturalIdentityand Diaspora,"in IdentityCommunity,Culture,Differ-
ence, ed. J. Rutherford(London:Lawrenceand Wishart,1990), 225.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 129

Cliffordphrases it, "identifications,not identities, acts of relationshiprather

than pre-given forms: this traditionis a network of partiallyconnected his-
tories, a persistently displaced and reinvented time/space of crossings."43
Especially against the background of transnational interventions and new
cosmopolitanisms, the evolutionof multipleidentities,such as the new class
of "astronauts"in Hong Kong, who shuttle from their naturalizedhavens in
Canada and Australiaback to Hong Kong, where they continue to conduct
business as usual, is just one of many possible examples of decolonizing
that, under other globalizing contexts, has led to a resurgence of ethnic
nationalism, pan-nationalfundamentalism,and culturalsyncretism.44
While it is clear that these multipleidentities and other reinscriptions
of postcolonial space, to borrowAkhilGupta's terms, constitute position-
ings in an ongoing politics of identity,it is equally importantin my opinionto
ask what all these positionings really mean.45 Just as multivocalityby itself
does not insure the deconstruction of culturalhegemonies (in the absence
of deinstitutionalizationof those cultural forms), one should not assume
that all instances of decentering constitute active moments in a contest of
power. Paul E. Willis'sclassic study of "ear'oles"and "lads"in the making
of working-class culture can be read in this regard as an attempt to create
an identity of resistance, as well as an acceptance of disempowerment,
in the imagination of an alternative life-world.46Similarly,in his study of
Taiwanese youth counterculture,Thomas A. Shaw has found it more ap-
propriateto view identities of resistance as a process of semiotic mediation
in the construction of separate local moralworlds ratherthan just a political
contest.47
The notion of identityor subjectivityas positionalityand interpreta-
tion has importantramificationsfor how one understands the arbitrariness
and function of culturaldiscourses. I argue that if ethnic identities and cul-
tural discourses are all constructions anyway, why bother to ask how true
they reallyare? A historicalview of things easily shows that nationalidentity
coded in terms of "Chineseness" was created in the span of a few decades
and can be shown, in the long run, to be ephemeral. The notion of a cul-

43. James Clifford,"Diasporas," CulturalAnthropology9, no. 3 (1994):321.

44. AihwaOng, "Onthe Edge of Empires:FlexibleCitizenshipamong Chinese in Dias-
pora,"Positions1, no. 3 (1993):745-78.
45. AkhilGupta, "TheSong of the NonalignedWorld:TransnationalIdentitiesand the
Reinscriptionof Space in LateCapitalism," CulturalAnthropology 7, no. 1 (1992):63-79.
46. PaulE. Willis,Learningto Labor(Westhead:Saxon House, 1977).
47. ThomasA. Shaw,"TheSemioticMediationof Identity," Ethos22, no. 1 (1994):83-119.
130 boundary2 / Summer1996

turallybased national identity in Taiwan is mostly a postwar creation, and

despite recognition of the oppression of authoritarianrule, the illusion of
Chineseness forcibly inculcated in these brief decades is still deeply in-
grained in the minds of the people, most of whom are ethnic Taiwanese.
Hong Kong identity was a similar postwar invention. Indeed, it is largely
due to the syncretic nature of Hong Kong culture cultivated in this period
and an indifference to the politics of identity that Hong Kong's imminent
returnto China followingthe Sino-British Declaration of 1984 has caused
another crisis of identity.Likewise,the widening diversitythat characterizes
the disposition of "Chinese" overseas, as well as the changing interna-
tional division of labor that has seen the inflow of Chinese professionals
back from overseas and the outflow of "astronauts"seeking permanent
residence elsewhere, has made the notion of hua-ch'iao anachronistic and
rendered traditionaldualisms between East and West meaningless. Inthis
regard, the rootedness of "culture"to local contexts of power and meaning
that have given rise to its diversityof expression in a comparative perspec-
tive suggests that these metaphors are not easily transportablefrom one
location to another, nor would it be easy to translate the various notions of
boundedness invokedby them. Contraryto Tu'sneo-essentialist idealism of
"culturalChina,"I would argue that the very nature of identityas a selective
process in the mind of individualsubject-actors grounded in local contexts
of power and meaning makes the possibilityof "Chinese"identifyingwith a
common discourse a hopelessly impossible task.
The semantic arbitrarinessof culturesuggests, moreover,that it may
be just as easy to invent discursive imaginations as to create a multiplicity
of identity-positions.The consequences of each are quite different, how-
ever. Multivocalityassumes the potentialrealityof identitiesthat have simply
been suppressed by the fictiveauthorityof culture,while polysemy assumes
a constant fiction of identities, whose realityor attempted legitimationcan-
not be separated from its relationship to existing political institutionsand
social groups.48This is a line that effectively divides EdwardW. Said from
Michel Foucault, and, in my opinion, one cannot have it both ways.49

48. Johannes Fabian,in "Presenceand Representation:The Otherand Anthropological

Writing," CriticalInquiry16, no. 4 (1990), makes a similarpoint:"Ifrepresentationhas to
do above all withpower,then it maynot onlybe thoughtof as praxisbutit is praxis"(756).
49. James Clifford,in ThePredicamentof Culture(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,
1988),260, rightlypointsout in his discussionof EdwardW.Said's Orientalism(NewYork:
Pantheon,1978) that Said differsfromFoucaultby suggesting that there is a real Orient
that is distortedand that is denied the authorityto speak.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 131

So, Who Are "We"?

Said's publicationssince Orientalismhave influenced tremendously
the course of culturalstudies in recent decades.50Moreinteresting,perhaps,
than Said's overcharge that Western scholars had exoticized the Orientas
an object of gazing is his assumption that there is a "real"Orient whose
identityhad been distorted by virtue of its having been denied the authority
to speak. Having successfully decolonized these silent voices of the op-
pressed, one may then ask, How are these identities constituted, and on
the basis of what do they attributetheir "reality"?How does one invokethe
"real"consciousness of ethnic realities that are the imaginative creations
and deliberate distortions of local, institutionalnexuses of power? Lastly,
who are "we"and how do we "identify"?
While it is easy for one to dichotomize East and West in orderto em-
power and authorize indigenous voices, it is a much hardertask to uncover
what these indigenous voices are or reallyshould be. The usage of ethnicity
as a marker of culture, which in turn serves as a marker of identity,is a
highly problematicone that has consistently been challenged in this paper,
albeit within the narrow context of "Chineseness." The recent discovery
by anthropologists that many societies do not have a bounded notion of
themselves as ethnic "groups"practicing "discrete"customs-hence that
the very concept of ethnicity may be "Orientalist"in nature-was enough
to incite a minor revolutionin the field. Although not totally immune from
ambiguities of this kind, China, on the other hand, appears to represent
a problem of a differentorder. In my opinion, the notion of "Chineseness"
suffers less from its intrinsic"absence" (as though denied by an Orientalist
authority)than from the presence of too many discourses, internalas well
as external. First,it is possible to show how notions of "Chineseness" have
changed throughout history as reflections from a sinocentric core to the
evolution of the nation-state, and these notions contrast with the way they
may be conceived by differentcommunities of Chinese as a functionof their
geographical removal (Hong Kong, overseas) or sociopolitical disposition
(class, gender). At the level of discourse (ethnicityas culture),there is much
reason to believe that these communities represent differentdiscursive uni-
verses precisely because they are grounded in locally specific contexts of
meaning and power. In this regard, there is much to learn from their se-

50. A recent internationalconference,"Ethnicities,Nationalities,Identities,"

held in 1994
at La TrobeUniversity,Melbourne,Australia,was pushed five months back to facilitate
Said's participation
as keynotespeaker.He nevercame.
132 boundary2 / Summer1996

mantic diversity,insofaras they can criticallyreflect back on the authorityof

a hegemonic center. At the level of identity (culture as pragmaticchoice),
however, the uses to which ethnicity is put to engender a conscious sense
of community invoke a ratherdifferentnotion of politics. In other words, is
he/she reallyspeaking as a Hong Konger,a Chinese man/woman,an alien-
ated laborer,an exiled sojourneryearning for home, or just a member of the
human race? Inthis regard,the semantic nature of ethnicityis probablyless
importantthan the recognitionof speech contexts wherein ethnicitycan be
seen as a relevantvariableamong many possible constituents of identity.
Instead of simply asking how identityis constituted, one should also
ask when and why identityis invoked.That is to say, perhaps more interest-
ing than knowingthat people have identities is the problem of why people
have crises of perception that give rise to new identities. The contrasting
direction of culturaldiscourse in contemporary Taiwan and Hong Kong is
a clear illustrationof how ethnic "reality"in itself serves as an inaccurate
gauge for understandingidentity.Inobjective terms, the postwar population
of both Taiwanand Hong Kong is made up of roughlythe same percentage
of mainlanders to resident locals. InTaiwan,this dualism is clearly marked
by the terms pen-sheng (indigenous) and wai-sheng (outsider),and hostility
along ethnic lines has been a staple feature of social relations. The recent
emergence of a Taiwanese consciousness that sees itself as a resistance
to Chinese culturalhegemony can be seen as a direct consequence of a
cluster of discursive spaces that has served to reifysuch dualistic concep-
tions. In Hong Kong, however, a number of differentfactors contributingto
its liminalstatus vis-a-vis the two Chinas can be seen as renderingthe kind
of ethnic dualism found in Taiwanless meaningful.51 The postwar construc-
tion of a Hong Kong consciousness was one that effectively incorporated
all ethnic Chinese there, regardless of regional origin, but that also tended
to divide culturalsentiment along generational lines, increasinglyalienating
those older refugees firmlytied to a previous homeland. Ironically,following
the Sino-BritishDeclarationof 1984, local sentiments of "place"have most
recently given way to a new imagination of "Chineseness" in a way that
contrasts sharply with developments in Taiwan.
In the final analysis, however, the problem of uncovering real in-
digenous voices inevitablyposes questions about the role of academics in
this entire enterprise. The polarization invoked both by subaltern studies

51. This is not to say that ethnic categories do not exist. IndigenousCantonese tend
typicallyto referto all northernersindiscriminately
as "Shanghainese."
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 133

and post-Orientaliststudies, albeit from differentdirections, has galvanized

"identities"to such an extent that all writing invariablybegins in the first
person. A curious consequence of asking who speaks for Indianpasts and
indigenous cultures, then, is that the role of native vis-a-vis metropolitan
academics (or is it scholars of differentethnicities?) becomes even more
pronounced. But do native academics really speak on behalf of natives? I
suggest that the ability of natives and of native scholars, in particular,to
speak on their own behalf is as much a function of the way academia at
the metropole has relegated to them a "local"role as the way native aca-
demia is embedded in the discourse of local society and politics, through
the productionof knowledge. One may ask, also, at what point do native
academics cease to become "local"within the ongoing dialectics of local
and global? Inan "international" context, it is easy to assume that such local
experts are representatives of their respective academic circles, but within
these circles, their role may be quite different.Needless to say, their label as
"Chinese"intellectuals becomes replaced by "postmodern,"or simply "radi-
cal." Moreover, contrary to the way cultural discourse may be construed
at the popular level, such local intellectual contestation most usually re-
volves around ideological issues that have littleto do with the authenticity
of indigenous voices.
InTaiwanand Hong Kong,a movement to sinicize the social sciences
began in the early eighties, sparkingefforts by anthropologists,sociologists,
and psychologists, in particular,to develop native models forthe social, cul-
tural, and behavioral study of Chinese society.52Theoretically,the various
approaches invoked covered a wide range of interests, from the use of in-
digenous concepts to study Chinese society and history,the use of social
scientific models to explain Chinese culturalconcepts, and the synthesis
of Chinese and Western experience to assess diverse phenomena such
as modernization and globalization. Given the random melange of disci-
plines and interests, it was rather difficultto recognize a definite thematic

52. The first, and most influential,volume of essays dealing with this subject is Yang
Kuo-shuand Wen Ch'ung-i,eds., She-hui chi hsing-weik'e-hsijehyen-chiu te chung-
kuo hua (The sinicizationof the social and behavioralsciences), Instituteof Ethnology
MonographSeries B, no. 10 (Nankang:AcademiaSinica, 1982). See Fu Ta-wei,"Li-shih
chien-kou,pien-ts'ueicheng-ts'e yQ 'chung-kuohua': tui t'ai-wan'hsing-weichi she-hui
k'e-hsieh chung-kuohua't'i-fate ssu-hsiangshihyen-chiu"(Historicalconstruction,mar-
ginal practicesand "sinicization":
An intellectualhistoricalanalysis regardingthe idea of
"sinicization
of the behavioraland social sciences" inTaiwan),Pao-taopien-yfian1 (1991):
103-25, fora criticalreviewof the literature.
134 boundary2 / Summer1996

orientation except for a common interest in "sinicization."53 Nonetheless,

in light of the prevailingatmosphere and nature of culturaldiscourse, the
movement drew popularappeal from the broader reading public. Although
the participants in this movement, most of whom were major figures in
mainstream academia, believed that the very idea of sinicizing the social
sciences was promptedprimarilyby the aim of reassessing the applicability
of Western models to Chinese society and by the possibilityof discovering
similarindigenous scientific concepts, there was very littlecriticalreflection
on basic concepts in one's own discipline, either as science or as cultural
construct. Itwas probablyfor this reason that later, more criticalscholars of
various persuasions refused to acknowledge any of it as being indigenous
or postcolonial, despite claims of "identity"to the contrary.
In short, diaspora, decolonization, and resistance in themselves
mean little. What appears at the global level to be a contest of identities
inevitablybecomes transformedat the local level into a contest of meaning
that pits the desirabilityof one set of values over another. Multiplyingpoints
of resistance to dominant ideologies represents only a point of departure
for meaningfulconstitutionof those identities and is not the productof iden-
tifyingalone. Effectivedecentering of authoritytakes place only when one
operates within given frameworks of meaning to create the possibility of
new, imagined communities.
On the basis of this experience, I have begun to extol the virtues of
being Peranakan. This does not mean, however, that one is free to invent
culture as one pleases. Marx'sfamous dictum that "men make history,but
not of their own free will"is equally applicable to culture. Only by demysti-
fying (not just decolonizing) the authorityof interests that have deemed it
necessary to define culture in a particularway and to make people identify
with prevailingcommunities would one then be free to choose, making the
idea of multipleidentities a meaningful reality.
Yet, more important than the notion of multiple identities, which
represents a loose code word for counterhegemonic discourse of various
sorts, in my opinion, is the need to articulatethe various contexts (of speech
or practice) wherein facets of identity(such as ethnicity)are deemed to be
relevant.That is to say, what kinds of contexts demand that one speak from

53. Sinicizationlaterbecame replacedby the term indigenization.Psychologists,in par-

ticular,continuedto cultivateinterestin nativeconcepts of behaviorby organizingregu-
lar seminars on such themes and by establishinga journalon "the indigenizationof
psychology."
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 135

a position of identity,and what contexts do not? The question of relevance,

in this regard, leaves open the possibility that there may be instances in
which ethnicity is totally irrelevantor in which there is no necessity to iden-
tify. Indeed, why identifyif the act of identificationimplies boundedness to
a given community? The recognition of multiplecontexts of speech is not
the same as speaking on the basis of multipleidentities. Identificationitself
is problematic.

To Identifyor Not to Identify

Just as one has been led to believe that multiculturalismhas been
invented by the advent of postmodern theory, one has also been led to be-
lieve that postcolonial theory had finally liberated the multipleidentities in
us all. Most human societies fromtime immemorialhave been multicultural
or multiethnic,only to be subjected to temporary erasure by the imagined
homogeneity of the nation-state. Similarly,the need to recognize multiple
identities is, in the first instance, the recognition of an empire of mind that
subordinates and negates difference. Thus, the substance of any particular
identity matters less than the problematic nature of identity as a concep-
tual entity. Its emergence in intellectual and political discourse is less a
sudden prise de conscience than the consequence of subtle sociological
changes that have given rise to crises of perception. Ifthe power of iden-
tity is such that it can invent its own traditions,then it is less a matter of
content than of form. Moreover,it entails a relationshipwith a given com-
munityof people whose existence is meaningful only in relationto similar
bounded communities. In essence, what causes people to identify in the
first instance is the way in which the context of practice is framed, whereby
certain strategic choices are seen as relevant or desirable. In other words,
it might be possible for one to identify as Cantonese, Chinese, or Asian,
depending on whether the frame of reference is meant to accent feelings
of intimacyamong a small circle of kinsmen, to distinguish oneself in terms
of presumed cultural origins, or to mark one's solidarity in contrast with
non-Asians. In no case is facticity a relevant issue. Identificationwith the
first may be relevant in consideration of personal lifestyle; the second, in
consideration of intellectual orientation;and the third, in consideration of
politicalinterest. Finally,there will, no doubt, be cases in which one wishes
simply to be taken for what one "really"is (i.e., simply as a person, in which
the ethnic factor is deemed irrelevant),as well as cases in which an explicit
claim of identityis not deemed necessary (in which case, ethnicityis simply
136 boundary2 / Summer1996

seen as matter-of-fact).In effect, identificationis a function both of how the

context is defined and of how one might perceive the strategic nature of
available choices.
Although identity is not exclusively a national concept, the heated
rhetoricsurroundingcurrentdebates regardingthe politics of identityhave
largely been prompted by assumptions of boundedness and totality in-
trinsic to the nation-state. The notion of multiple identities, while serving
to decenter the authority of cultural hegemony does not in itself destroy
the boundedness of identityand, in some cases, may even heighten it by
making resistance inherentlypolitical.The dualism dividingethnic national-
ists and culturalconstructionists neatly mapped out by JeffreyTobinclearly
shows certain irreconcilabledifferences concerning the interpretationof au-
thenticity in the content of traditionalculture.54The factual debates over
content, however, mask an even deeper irreconcilabledifference in the way
natives and anthropologists, as subjects, identifywith culture,as objects of
both appropriationand discourse. While Tobin rightlycontextualizes con-
structionist discourse in relationto an earlier anthropologicalromanticism
and criticizes the lack of empathy that enables the anthropologist to be
aloof, thus immunefromthe colonial situationthat gives rise to the politicsof
resistance, he fails to define precisely who has the rightto identifyor stipu-
late to what extent this rightto identifyentails the assumption of authenticity
in culture. While it is easy to facetiously distance the anthropologist with
Tonto-likeclaims of "whatdo you mean, 'we,'white man?"it seems equally
difficultto justifywithsemantic preciseness who exactly qualifies as a native
without, at the same time, spelling out what might be shared assumptions
about Hawaiianess. Especially in lightof an admittedlymulticulturalsociety
in which ethnic Hawaiians now constitute a small minorityand in which in-
digenous tradition,as it has evolved from the past, has already undergone
considerable change and reconstitution,one mightask equally facetiously,
is it enough simply to empathize? Is it acceptable for anyone who claims
to "identify"with the land, even if one's identificationwith culture is with its
vulgar and most fetishized attributes,to qualifyas a bona fide native? While
the anthropologistcan continue to remain aloof by his refusal to "identify,"
the native's obligationto empathize likewise reinforces the boundaries that
continue to separate the self from others. But what justifies the existence of
these categories, if not the arbitrarycharacter of nationalistidentityitself?

54. JeffreyTobin,"CulturalConstructionand NativeNationalism:Reportfromthe Hawai-

ian Front,"boundary2 21, no. 1 (1994):111-33.
 Chun/ FuckChineseness 137

The phenomenon of globalizationin the late capitalist culturalecon-

omy has created a web of complex relationships that has introducedfun-
damental disruptivechanges in the fabricof society--in the form of deterri-
torialization,mass migrations,and diasporic identification--thatwill, some
argue, contribute inevitably to the overall demise of the modern nation-
state. Withinsuch a context, it is clear that ethnic nationalismis only one of
many possible forms of postcolonial identityand that, given the diversityof
local discourse and institutionalregimes, there is no reason to believe that
the same globalizing forces in one context could not lead to a hardening
of existing boundaries, while in another context lead to their very dissolu-
tion. Any resultant identity is really the consequence of deeper processes
of a sociological nature than of identificationitself, no matter how unam-
biguous it may seem or how well grounded it may be in relationto factual
authenticity.
The global order that has contributedto the constitutionand recon-
stitution of local identity is not unlike the "imperialcontest" that aspires
to link the project of postcolonial theorists in the metropole to the emer-
gence of postcolonial identity among the silent others. As Arif Dirlikhas
rightlypointed out, ironically,it is participationin postcolonial discourse that
characterizes one as a postcolonial intellectual ratherthan the content of
postcolonial discourse itself, which, forthe most part, remains inadequately
defined.55Perhaps like native nationalists, their "identity"is predicated on
the assumed real existence of such discourse ratherthan on any a priori
discussion of what distinguishes indigenous truth from Orientalistfictions
(in this regard, culturalconstructionism represents an attempt to show that
politics (rather than knowledge itself) is the prime condition for the pro-
duction of knowledge). Like Tobin, Dirlikcriticizes postcolonialists in the
metropole by attributingtheir tendency to resort to aesthetic phraseology
in theoretical discourse as a sign of their aloof removalfrom the context of
power relationships that prompteda sociology of power in the first place.56
The term postcolonial (as defined by identity),however, is perhaps an in-
accurate term to cover the diversity of intellectualpositions in any indige-
nous context, not to mention those contexts not strictlycharacterizable as
evolving from a "colonial"situation. The distancing that "native"thirdworld
intellectuals feel vis-a-vis "diasporic"comrades in the metropole is a case

55. ArifDirlik,"ThePostcolonialAura:ThirdWorldCriticismin the Age of GlobalCapital-

ism,"CriticalInquiry20 (1994):332.
56. Dirlik,"ThePostcolonialAura,"343.
138 boundary2 / Summer1996

in point, but even in an indigenous context, there are positions that cross-
cut a wide politicalspectrum, not all of which can be rightlycharacterized
as postcolonial. To be sure, the revival of Confucianism in modern East
Asia is as much a product of resistance to Western imperialism(in terms
of identity)as an appropriationor mimicking(in terms of native content) of
a Western narrativeof modernization.The poverty of the "postcolonial"is
most evident when it is used in its most vulgar sense-as a statement of
identityalone.
What needs urgent clarification,then, is the sociological context that
produces a range of strategic choices as well as the pragmaticframework
by which subject-actors make sense of a given situation of practice and
rationalize their own interests in relation to it. Both assume an ongoing
linkage between ideology and practice ratherthan the inherent privileging
of one over the other. The sociology of power relationships that give rise
to identities cannot be reduced to any one magical theory of postcoloni-
ality, because there are many colonialisms that are rooted in historically
specific contexts, each of which is cloaked in locally defined systems of
meaning. Similarly,a pragmatic frameworkcentered on the interpretation
of culturalmeaning cannot be divorcedfroma preexisting networkof power
relationships that influences the desirabilityof one choice over another.
Ironically,while postcoloniality appears to privilege the local by in-
vokingthe realityof multipleidentitiesand make sacred indigenous truthsto
counter Orientalistfictions, there is, I argue, a huge gap in our understand-
ing of the local historical-sociologicalframeworkthat produces local cultural
discourse. The very language of postcolonialityinheritedfrom the modern
world system, with its intrinsicconcern with homogenization and heteroge-
neity, cores and peripheries, or pushes and pulls, reflects a ratherskewed
vision of the "world"from the center of things, one which can be easily
translated into a series of knee-jerk reactions. There tends to be relatively
less concern, however, with the diverse ways in which the same threats
from the "outside"are locally synthesized in order to produce reactions as
varied as ethnic nationalism, pan-nationalfundamentalism,supranational-
ism, cult fanaticism,and culturalcreolization,all of which impingeon notions
of identity.Is Chineseness important?How can one not give a fuck?