Friday, 8 May 2015

Stereotypes of a Malaysian Chinese

I'm a Malaysian currently studying in the UK. As an ethnic chinese student, I faced a lot stereotypes.
Here are some common stereotypes I faced as a Malaysian Chinese in UK:

1. My English is very bad
2. I am a communist supporter
3. I am an atheist.
4. I am rude, loud and ignorant of others
5. I'm super rich and arrogant due to the fact that I have lots of money
6. I'm here to stay in the UK illegally.
7. I'm from China, definitely.

This is my point of view:
I am a 4th generation chinese in Malaysia. My great-grandparents migrated from China to British North Borneo (modern day Sabah of Malaysia) during the 1920's due to political unrest in China. Decades passed by and my grandparents are granted Malaysian citizenship after the independence of Sabah, forming the federation of Malaysia in the 1960's. Decades later, I was born in the 90's. Hence, China is of no relation to me (other than the fact that I'm an ethnic Chinese and Chinese originated from China). I am a Malaysian. Malaysia is my home country and I will identify myself as a Malaysian, not Chinese.
Generally, Malaysian Chinese are quite different from Chinese from China. If you are generalising all chinese in the same category, it is same like categorising all European in the same stereotype. (Genrally, an Englishman would not love to be identified as an Ukrainian, would he). Due to decades of assimilation into the Malaysian culture, I actually can not relate to the Chinese of China, Even our languages are quite mutually unintelligible.

Answering to the common stereotypes as above:
1. Generally, Malaysian Chinese have a good English language background. It will be quite offensive for a Brit to say to a Malaysian chinese " Do you understand what I'm talking? Shall I go slower? I know, it's hard for Chinese to converse entirely in English." We learn English since our kindy years, I read my bible in English, all my school subjects are taught in English except some other languages class. I speak to my friends in English. So, depends on your definition, my first language is actually English. However, due to the fact that Malaysia is a multicultural country, most Malaysian Chinese can speak other languages as well. For me, I can speak Cantonese, Hakka, Mandarin, Malay, English, and a little bit of Hokkien. I speak Cantonese with my family members, Hakka with my extended family, Malay with my Malay friends, Mandarin with the school friends, English with my church members, Hokkien with my cousins (a little bit).

2. No, I don't support communism. In fact, I think democratic nations are the best.

3. I am a Christian. Just because my face is Asian doesn't mean that I'm from China with no religion at all. Sometimes I find it quite funny that people in UK assume that I don't have any knowledge about religions at all, just by judging my face. "Oh, you from China? Wow Christianity and Church must be something strange to you! Wanna know more about Jesus? Come to our evangelical courses! Don't worry, we have Chinese translations for you" If I'm really from China Mainland, I'll probably be more than happy to continue this conversation. But since I'm from Malaysia and I've been a Christian my whole life, I think this questions might be a little bit offensive (I don't need chinese translations, thank you). But, it is very encouraging to see that the churches in UK are doing their part in bringing more China Chinese to Christ. However, I don't blame anyone due to the fact that we can't tell the difference between a China Chinese and a Malaysian Chinese based on the facial looks alone.

4. Recently, due to the economic boom of China, many Chinese from China became use their new found wealth to travel around the world. Chinese tourists have a bad reputation because in some cases, they are known to be very loud, arrogant, dirty, inconsiderate, and some even urinate at the public subway. In extreme cases, they abuse the tourist service providers and carve their names on some historical monuments, like the ones in Egypt. Because of bad reputation of tourists from China, we as a Malaysian Chinese with an Asian face tends to be stereotyped that way as well. No, Malaysian Chinese (and other oversea chinese such as Singaporean and Canadian) are quite well mannered. We know the rules and we will not break it (there's no benefits of breaking a UK law anyway)

5. I'm poor. I'm always on budget because I'm on scholarship to study in the UK. Praise God for the scholarship! But I've witness the lifestyles of Hong Kongers and Mainland Chinese students whom I consider as "lavish".

6. No, I really want to obey the law. Even if I want to migrate to other countries, I will not enter illegally.

7. No, I'm from Malaysia. If you see any Asian faces and assume that they're from China even before striking a conversation, you will be offending Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Indonesians, Taiwanese, etc... and maybe some Aussies, Americans, British, Canadians and Kiwis. But I will not blame you as there are 1.3 billion humans in China and only 50 million ethnic chinese are born outside of China. (That's less than 5%)


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