Reterritorializing Transnational Ism Chinese Americans and the Chinese Motherland

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Re-Territorializing Transnationalism: Chinese Americans and the Chinese Motherland

Author(s): Andrea LouieSource: American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Aug., 2000), pp. 645-669Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/647354

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re-territorializingransnationalism:ChineseAmericans and the Chinese motherland

ANDREA LOUIE

Michigan State University

A youth festival sponsored by the Chinese (P.R.C.)government for overseasChinese youth (hua yi) who visit Chinarepresentsa political ritual of the Chi-

nese state that draws upon a long history of invoking discourses of Chineseculture to create connections to the Chinese abroad. Thoughframed in a con-text of continuity, the festival ironicallyproduces new knowledges about dif-ferent ways of being Chinese, exposing the fissureswithin the assumed nexusof race, culture, and nation, and thus complicating notions of what consti-tutes a transnationalcommunity. [China,Chinese diaspora, transnationalism,

identity, race and culture, modernity].

Inthis article, I draw on a specific ethnographic case to describe the latest shifts

in a long relationship between Guangdong Chinese (mainland Chinese) and Chinesein the United States(overseas Chinese or Chinese abroad).'Chinese Americans re-ter-ritorialize their identities in relation to mainland China amid transnationalflows of

media, people, ideas, and capital. These flows reveal differing interpretationsof Chi-neseness between the Chinese state, mainland Chinese citizens, and transnationalChinese communities. Tensions arise between historically rooted assumptions aboutChineseness as a racial category and changing ways of being culturally, racially, and

politically Chinese (in China and the diaspora).I draw upon multi-sitedethnographic researchconducted in 1994-95 in the San

Francisco Bay area and the Pearl River Delta region in the southern partof Guang-

dong province in the People's Republicof China (P.R.C.).In1982, the Office of Over-seas Chinese Affairs(Qiao Ban)began sponsoring a youth festival foryoung people ofChinese descent who are citizens of foreign countries (hai wai hua yi).2 The festivaland affiliated summer camp programsthat are jointly organized by Chinese govern-ment organizations and members of various Chinese American communities serve asfocal points for this article. The youth festival represents a particularethnographicmoment from which to analyze the effects of mainland China's re-opening and globaleconomic restructuring.The festival also offers an opportunity to consider the re-newed global focus on EastAsia and the effects of this focus on the construction ofnew Chinese identities in China and the United States. Mainland Chinese and the

Chinese Americans in this research are not linkedthroughsocial networks and sharedcultural or political beliefs, but by myths of common origin rooted in multiple rein-

forcing discourses connecting race, nation, and territory.I argue that transnational

(re)connections create potential for links based on shared heritage (often the subjectof transnationalscholarship), but they also allow for Chineseness to work within offi-cial and non-official structures as both a unifying and differentiatingfactor exposing

American Ethnologist27(3):645-669. Copyright? 2000, AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation.



american ethnologist

the ways that patriotism,cultural identification, and racial categorizations sometimes

align unevenly.The P.R.C. reaches beyond the bounds of modern territorialnationalism, em-

ploying "extraterritorial arrativesof racial and cultural continuity"(Duara 1997:39)to redefine its relationshipwith the Chinese abroad who are no longer citizens of theChinese nation-state. Beginningwith the open policy and economic reform(gaige kai

fang)in the late 1970s,3 the P.R.C.has re-emergedfrom its socialist cocoon to engagewith the outside world. It has drawn upon historically rooted racial ideas of Chinese-

ness (see Ong 1999; Siu 1994), and relatedassumptionsabout patriotismand culture,to call upon overseas Chinese patriotsto build a new, modern nation demonstratingsocialism with Chinese characteristics. Justas the emergence of Chinese national

identity at the turn of the 20th century requiredthe production of a broader sense of

Chineseness that cut across the variety of existing regional and political allegiances(Duara 1997), the P.R.C.government today must create a contemporary connectionto the Chinese abroad that takes into account the diversity of political, cultural, re-

gional, and generational identities within and outside of the mainland. Thisgoal must

be accomplished, however, without the claims of extraterritorial ule that have in the

past placed overseas Chinese in precarious positions in the countries in which theyresided (see Wang 1995; Williams 1960).4

re-territorializing transnationalism

In this article, I offer an ethnographic case study to examine how transnational

flows of people, capital, and media provide the broader context for reshaping theidentitiesof people of Chinese descent who are broughttogether throughritualsof the

Chinese state. Myworkwith hua yi (descendents of overseas Chinese) exposes deeplyrooted tensions within the multiple (sometimes competing) narrativesproduced byChinese Americans, Chinese citizens, and the Chinese state to describe transnational

linkages between China and the overseas Chinese. It also exposes tensions within the

new nationalisms thatemerge from these ritualand narrativeprocesses.

My ethnographic analysis of the youth festival and related activities reflects

changing dynamics between culture, capital, and the state in two broad areas.5First,

increasingcontact between mainland Chinese and the Chinese abroad made

possiblethroughtransnationalflows may foster a sense of shared Chineseness and also, ironi-

cally, at least within the state-sponsored projects based on these principles, new

knowledges about different, unfamiliarways of being Chinese. Transnationalflows

play an importantrole in re-creatinga sense of Chineseness across national borders,but ratherthan resulting in a unified, collective transmigrant dentity, these Chinese

identities are formed in contrastto one another. When those in diaspora and those in

the homeland are broughttogether, the differences that were not evident from a dis-

tance are revealed (see Bruner1996).While official state discourses promote a unitaryChineseness that equates race

with patriotismand cultural knowledge as the basis for the youth festival,6the differ-ences among those who attend become evident duringthe festival. Though Chinese

government discourses racialize Chinese American and other hua yi participantsas

Chinese, hua yi lack the cultural signifiers and patriotic sentiments that these dis-

courses normallyassociate with having "black hair and yellow skin." The youth festi-

val, which is intended by its organizers to produce a sense of transnationalChinese

unity by emphasizing connections between race, culture, and nationalism, is actuallya failed ritual of the state since it results in the production of narratives of identitythatcomplicate official discourses on overseas Chinese.7 Incontrastto scholars who

646



re-territorializingtransnationalism

emphasize and celebrate the construction of new identities across borders(Appadurai1996; Clifford1997), Iargue for a closer examination of how transnationalprocesses

produceidentities that furtherdifferentiate

diasporic populationsfrom the homeland.

Second, the contradictions that become evident through the ritual of the youthfestival point to a re-positioning of the relativestatus of mainland Chinese vis-a-vis the

Chinese abroad, removing the Chinese overseas from their previously privileged

standingthat had been based on theiropportunitiesto earn foreign capital and to ex-

perience life abroad. Transnational flows of migration, media, and capital have re-

connected mainland China to Chinese populations abroad, without either population

necessarily having to move. The wider context for the youth festival and summer

camps is one in which many Guangdong Chinese are beginning to consider the possi-

bility of Chineseness as race without culture, overseas Chinese capital investment

without patriotism,and a mainland Chinese modernity centered on mainland tradi-tions and self-sufficiency.

These data lead me to broadertheoretical conclusions about alternativeconcep-tions of transnationalism.Specifically, Iconsider the participationin transnationalso-

cial fields of those who experience the effects of transnationalcapital and global flows

from the sidelines. Scholarly reviews of the transnational literature have divided the

field into two primary areas (Glick Schiller 1997; Ong 1999; Smith and Guarnizo

1998): transnationalcultural studies (Appadurai1996; Clifford 1997), which exam-

ines the effects of global culturalflows in creating a transnationalpublic culture, and

transmigrantpractices(Basch et al.

1994,Rouse

1992),which

emphasizesthe crea-

tion of social networks across borders through the daily practices of traveling mi-

grants. In this article, I address the firstarea, transnational cultural studies, which fo-

cuses on the formation of cosmopolitan identities and the creation of transnational

public spheres through media flows. Within this literature, cosmpolitan migrantsseem to move easily within these cosmopolitan spaces. National boundaries and state

control seem to be of little concern, and often what is "there" blurs with what is

"here."The implication is that in these cosmopolitan worlds, locality and local identi-ties decline in relevance, while the potentialfor borderlandpositions and identities in

motion expands. I argue that the emphasis on mobile, traveling subjects diminishes

the significance of place and of place-grounded ethnography. Hybridityand borderpositions are privileges not accessible to all, and the theoretical centralityof flows and

mobility tends to ignore the various barriers o access to these flows or the systems of

control that shape their various, often unpredictable effects. Though Chinese Ameri-

cans enjoy the privilege of mobility, their identities are strongly shaped by the nation-

states in which they reside and are less portable than the cosmopolitan classes de-

scribed earlier.It is evident that the nation-state remains a strong basis for identification, that

states in various ways attemptto extend influence over transnationalsubjects (Schein

1998; Smith and Guarnizo 1998), and that access to various forms ofcapital

deter-mines the natureand extent of actors' participationin transnationalsocial fields. Ac-

cordingly, it is necessary to recasttransnational heories to take fuller account of waysin which identities are situated within transnational fields in places and historiesthatremain attached to nation-states. More nuanced conceptions of "place"and "tradi-

tion" must be inserted into discussions of transnationalism. The ancestral homeland is

a place recovered not only through the unfetteredwork of the imagination, but also

through the reconstruction of histories and processes of re-territorializationaccom-

plished througha "politicsof the local" (Hall 1990).

647




Critics dissatisfied with the tendency in U.S. cultural studies to view transna-tional flows as dematerialized and separatefrom capital structuresor everyday expe-riences have called for

theorizingthe

conceptof

transnationalism,so that itwill main-

tain its analytical usefulness and not become "an empty conceptual vessel" (Smithand Guarnizo 1998:11; see also Ong 1999:13 and Smith and Guarnizo 1998:4).These critics emphasize the need to further differentiate between differenttypes of

transmigrantsaccording to class, generation, and degree of mobility, and to investi-

gate how such factors shape their relationshipswith their homelands. They also ques-tion whether transnational processes must always be read as oppositional to the na-tion-state (Mahler1998; Schein 1998; Smith and Guarnizo 1998).8 Is actual migration(andfor what duration)necessaryto create connections between two communities ordo other types of trans-borderpractices result in transnational linkages (see Mahler

1998; Smartand Smart1998)?Cultural lows of "things,not bodies" (Mahler1998:77) are centralto the produc-

tion of "bifocal"(Mahler 1998:77, citing Rouse 1992:41) perspectives characteristicof transmigrantcommunities. Social actors construct transnational linkages almost"from scratch" around distant, shared origins (Schein 1998) to create consciouslyconstructed "communities" that often produce specific types of contradictions and

political and power dynamics. The relationship between second- and third-genera-tion descendants of original transmigrants nd the motherlandchanges over time, andthese generations are influenced in differentways by the circulation of images, goods,

capital, and people that are part of global transnationalflows (Levittand Waters in

press).9As a corrective to an uncritical celebration of hybrid, transnational identitiesas inherently emancipatory and subversive of state and national powers, this new ap-proach emphasizes everyday practices and the situated study of "transnationalismfrom below" (Smithand Guarnizo 1998:3).

As part of this revised approach, recent works in the field of Chinese transna-tional studies by Ong (1999) and Ong and Nonini (1997) advocate moving beyond aChina-centered view of overseas Chinese studies that privileges the mainland and

relegates those in diasporato a residualChina. Instead,they focus on the formation of"alternativemodernities" (Ong 1999) built on the discourses of Chinese culture and

the historicallinkages,

kin networks,andtradingpractices

that connect Chinese in di-

aspora to one another. According to Ong and Nonini, participantsin modern Chinese

transnationalism define Chineseness in numerous ways and "throughaccumulation

strategies, mobility, and modern mass media-ha[ve] engendered complex, shifting,and fragmentedsubjectivities that areat once specific yet global"(1997:26).

An examination of the daily practices and interactions-among participants,offi-

cials, state employees, and local Chinese in the context of the youth festival and sum-mer camps-exposes the gaps within both official and unofficial discourses about the

relationship between China and the Chinese abroad. My work highlights the waysthat multiple, perhaps competing ideas of modernity, tradition,and nationalism can

emerge through close-up interactionsthat occur at the festivals. Ong (1999) has laidthe groundworkfor a definition of Chinese modernityderived from mainland Chineseconnections with overseas Chinese. She describes two areas of tension stemmingfrom post-Mao reforms. These reformslink an emerging Chinese modernityto racialand cultural connections with overseas Chinese capitalists. The first area of tensionoccurs between the interests of the Chinese state and the practices of transnational

capital. While overseas Chinese capitalism is a routeto Chinese capitalist modernity,transnational nvestorsat the same time exploitthe labor of Chinese citizens,which con-tradicts the interests of the state. The second contradiction involves inconsistencies

648




between official government and folk models of overseas Chinese. The ethnographiccase of the youth festival allows for an examination of these contradictions. Buildingon

Ong's analysis,which calls attention to the

conflictinginterests

emergingfrom

within unifying models of fraternitybetween Chinese and overseas Chinese, I focus

on hua yi to address squarely how contradictions resulting from the dissonance of

race, culture, and nation are played out.

Scholars who examine the effects of transnationalmedia flows on the re-negotia-tion of Chinese identities have traced another dimension of increased contact be-

tween mainland Chinese and overseas Chinese. Mayfair Yang (1997) analyzes the

ways that the transnational mass media have created a public sphere that links main-

land Chinese to Chinese communities abroad. Susan Brownell (1999), in her discus-

sion of transnational sports television coverage, furtherdistinguishes the ways that

transnationalmedia flows have brought experiences of Chinese outside of China backto mainland audiences, reinforcinga mainland-centered (as opposed to a de-territori-

alized) nationalism that is not necessarily consistent with official state discourses. Ina

similarsense, my data point to the ways that transnational contacts between mainland

Chinese and the Chinese abroad have strengthened a Chinese identitythat is Guang-

dong-centered, defined in contrast to the Chinese abroad, rather handerived fromre-

lations with them. Formainland Chinese, transnational media flows not only create

new realms of desire as described by Yang (1997), but provide the basis for opposi-tional China-based identities constructed in contrast to the outside world and not nec-

essarily in sync with official partylines.

My examination of the youth festival calls into question the internalhomogene-ity, nostalgia, and economic practices of hua yi in relation to China, the motherland.

The youth festival illustratesthe dynamic and dialectical processes that characterize

relations between transmigrantor overseas populations and the state.These processesare neither consistently opposed nor wholly constitutive of the complex dynamicsthat comprise transnationalpractices.10Though the Chinese state apparatusin chargeof overseas Chinese affairs is a primaryactor in the youth festival, the festival repre-sents a collaborative effort between government workers, local Chinese, and visitinghua yi and their respective organizations. Inthe analysis following my description of

the youth festival and summer camps, Ifocus on the contradictionsthat emerge from

the festival and the dynamic processes that Chinese and Chinese American festivalparticipants incorporate for the negotiation of new Chinese identities both by and in

relation to state practices.

race and nation

Ideas about Chineseness as a racial form of identification extending beyond theboundaries of the nation-state (in fact, predating it) have allowed for a category of

people of Chinese descent who no longer live on Chinese soil but are still considered

to be raciallyChinese (hua).This linkageforms the basis forassumptionsof youth fes-tival organizers about the relationship between Chinese youth from abroad andChina. The P.R.C.'syouth festival representsa political ritual of the state (see Kertzer

1988),11 in which the government attempts to foster a sense of Chineseness to link

generations of Chinese born outside of China to the Chinese nation-state. The dis-courses of Chinese identity that are woven throughout the youth festival have their

historical roots in turn of the century Chinese nationalism, in which allegiance to theChinese nation-state was viewed as a naturalextension of being racially and cultur-

ally Chinese (Dikotter1992, Duara1997).

649




Dikotter(1992) describes a clear evolution of the discourse of race in China from

the 1 5th centuryto the present, culminating in the ideology of race as nation. Accord-

ingto

Dikotter,race and national

identitywere the

productsof intellectual and

politi-cal ideologies constructed in opposition to the foreignOther. The ideology of race de-

veloped in multiple stages, involving the creation of categories of purity defined in

terms of shared heritage or lineage (zu) and blood. The color yellow represented a

"racial(biological) cohesiveness that would subsume regional alliances in the face of

foreign aggression" (Dikotter 1992). The equation of race and nation came with

China's transformation rom empire to nation (1911) and encompassed both heredi-

tary and territorialcomponents as the Chinese people were imagined within official

discourses as descended from a common ancestor and living in a shared territory.Han Chinese, the majorityrace (da minzu zhu yi), were descendants of the Yellow

EmperorHuang di (a mythical ancestor who was said to have existed 2697-2597B.C.). Nationalism framed in terms of national preservation equated love for one's

countrywith love forone's race (aizhong ai guo).Throughthese processes of racialization, black eyes and yellow skin became the

racial markers of Han Chinese, whether on the mainland or abroad. This racial dis-

course has permeated all levels of Chinese society, from government propaganda to

folk views of Chineseness. Inthe numerous fieldwork interviews that Iconducted with

mainland Chinese regardingtheir attitudes toward the Chinese abroad, these two

physical characteristicswere used repeatedly by informants n both official and infor-

mal discussions to explain whyoverseas

Chinese wouldwish to

returnto China and

what (if nothing else) remained essentially Chinese about them. Bothfolk and official

models depict people of Chinese descent as deriving patrioticsentiments from these

physical characteristics. These sentiments include attachment to one's native place(evenifone had neverbeenthere,one shouldwish to go)andrespect orConfucianvalues.

Forexample, informantscited black hair and yellow skin as a reason that tennis

player Michael Chang loved China (and these same characteristicswere cited as rea-

sons that people who felt he did not love China thought he should). Informantsattrib-

uted these traitsto me as a way to assure themselves (and perhaps me) that Iwas in-

deed Chinese, even though Icame from the United States.One student,asked to draw

a picture of me on the chalkboard as part of a game, drew a rough stick figure withyellow chalk, explaining, "Yousee, Andrea is Chinese, so she has yellow skin and

black hair."The "politicsof native roots,"described by Helen Siu (1994:32), involve the ex-

pectation that overseas Chinese will exercise their cultural identity and connectionswith their native places in China and the Chinese nation through political commit-

ment and patriotism.Theircommitment, in the minds of mainland Chinese officials,should be "based on primordialsentiments and in the name of national unity, territo-

rial bond, and family pride" (1994:32).12 These ideas originate in "culturalistic"

(Levenson 1958)conceptions

of Chinese identities thatpre-existed

the modern

nation-state and provided the basis for the extension of Chinese identities beyondnational boundaries (Duara 1993). Nationalist discourses extrapolatedconnections at

the village level to the nation as a whole. Goodman (1995:1 2) argues that, in the

development of modern Chinese nationalism, love for one's native place did not

detract from one's love for the Chinese nation. On the contrary, loving and strengthen-

ing one's native place was "morallyexcellent" and supportedthe nation as a whole.

Migrants,both within and outside of mainland China, often described their feelingsfortheir hometowns in nostalgic terms.

650




Thatthese racial discourses and their links to territoryand nation provide a sub-

text for the youth festival organizers' plans is evident in an official publication by the

GuangdongProvincial Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs

(Guangdong ShengRen

MinZheng FuQiao Ban Gong Shi),published in late 1993, titled XinJiMu Bang, Gen

Zai Hua Xia(HeartTied to the Motherland,Roots in Hua Xia).Though the publicationacknowledges in its title the migrationof Chinese overseas, it also assumes that affec-tive ties to heritage, traditional culture, and hometown are dormant, waiting to bedrawn out through summer camp activities. The publication explicitly states the in-

tended effects of the summer camp activities inthe section sub-titled"Retrospectiveof

Guangdong Province's SummerCampsforYouths of Chinese Descent." Thefive main

goals listed are:

1. PropagateChinesecultureandstrengthenhe national onsciousness.

2. Deepentheknowledgeof motherlandndstrengthenhe national ecognition.3. Foster he participants'ttachmento theirnativevillage(xiang uguannian)and

arouse heirnostalgic motion.4. Intensifyhe cooperationandexchangebetweenChineseandforeignyouthsand

enhancesolidarityndfriendship.5. AdvanceoverseasChineseaffairs.

[Guangdong rovincialOfficeof OverseasChineseAffairs 993]

These goals take into account the "friendlyand skeptical attitudes toward China"of the overseas Chinese youth, while at the same time working toward "friendship"

and the advancement of overseas Chinese affairsby drawing on a combination of"travel and education" to expose the visiting youth to their Chinese roots and "tradi-tional" Chinese culture. Such exposure is supposed to build, and in some sense revive,a sense of national consciousness and draw upon nostalgic attachments to places to

which most hua yi have never been (Guangdong Provincial Office of Overseas Chi-nese Affairs1993).

the youth festival

Theyouth

festival takesplace annually13-every July,

400youth

fromGermany,Madagascar, Canada, the United States, France, and Malaysia assemble for a three-

day period in Guangzhou. The festival begins with an opening ceremony, which is

typically held at one of Guangzhou's larger, upscale hotels, such as the Dongfang

Bingguan (EasternHotel) or the FayuanJiudian(Garden Hotel). The theme of the festi-

val, displayed on large banners hanging from helium balloons outside the hotel, is

"Peace, Unity, Friendship, Progress"(he ping, tuanjie, you yi, jin bu). The welcomeinvolves the overseas youth in a procession watched by flag-waving local students,followed by a banquet, featuring opening speeches by officials from the city of

Guangzhou and fromthe Office of Overseas Chinese Affairs.14talso includes numer-

ous cultural performances of traditional Chinese dance, singing, and martial arts. Atthe end of the festival activities, each group of hua yi is asked to give a performance,which rangesfrom wu shu demonstrationsto the singing of a song in Chinese (such as"The Cloud Over My Hometown. . ."),to Tahitian dance. This participatoryaspect ofthe festival marksit as a ritualthat highlightsthe diversityand similaritiesamong Chi-nese diaspora cultures while at the same time subsuming these differences within a

broader, official statement of Chinese unity. To the government sponsors, the per-formances are a visualrepresentation f the huayi's love of their homeland. To the hua yi,they represent an opportunityto contribute to the largerritualby either markingthe

651




distinctiveness of their diasporic identities (as in the Tahitian dance) or displayingtheir"Chineseness"througha culturalperformance.

The huayi participants

receive souvenirs such as T-shirts,commemorative med-

als, and brush, ink, and chop sets. Festival organizers ask them to wear the shirts,which state the name of the festival (hai wai hua yi qing nian huan jie) in big red let-

ters across the back, and say "Guangdong"in Chinese characters on the front,on all

public outings. These outings include visits to historic monuments, such as the Sun

Yat Sen Memorial (the fatherof the nation, Sun Yat Sen was an overseas Chinese him-

self) and the 72 martyrsmemorial (constructedfrom cement blocks inscribed with the

names of overseas Chinese groups from around the world). Participantsvisit other

sites of interest, such as a mooncake factory (which proudly displays the "largestmooncake in the world," 1.5 meters in diameter)15and to Shenzhen, to see the fa-

mous SplendidChina and China FolkCulturevillages.16Visitsto a joint venture televi-sion factory in Shenzhen (in 1995) and to the sports drink company Jian Li Bao (in

1994) included walk-throughs of the factory production line, where young women

and men of about the same age as the overseas youths labored. Company officials re-

markedthat such successful economic growthwould not be possible without contri-

butions from overseas Chinese. The message, from both factory and government offi-

cials, consistently linked pride in local economic growth to the contributions of

overseas Chinese. Implicit in this official message was the assumptionthatthese Chi-

nese youth would share in this pridebecause of their Chinese rootsand perhapsmake

contributions of their own in the future. These sentiments of racial unity based on

shared Chinese heritage were captured in a poem printed in Chinese and Englishonthe pamphlet provided forall the 1995 youthfestival attendees:

Descendants f the Dragonwith BlackEyesGathered nder he BlueSkyTheirhearts relinked o each other

Theycherishhehopeof unity, riendship, rogress, ndpeace.[Guangdong rovincialOfficeof OverseasChineseAffairs 995]

The youth festival invokes these connections of blood and culture for the hua yiin orderto reacquaintthem with their motherlandthat, ifthey only knew, they would

love. Organizerschose the formatof travel and education out of recognition that theChinese abroad have been assimilated to non-Chinese ways. The Guangdong Provin-

cial Qiao Ban publication on the youth festival and camps, featuringcolorful photosof hua yi posed in front of various monuments, walking through villages, and even

straddlingwater buffalo,17 tates:

ThegenerationfoverseasChineseyoutharegraduallyssimilated ythe countriesnwhichthey live.TheytakebothfriendlyandskepticalattitudesowardChina.Theycome to jointhecampswith tentative uriosity.On accountofthis stateof mind,westressa combination f traveland education.Educationntravel aysparticularm-

phasison the influenceof

images.All

camp holdingunitsare askedto

organizehe

participantso visitplacesof interest, epresentativeactories, arms,andschoolsthatreflectour economic developmentand scientificresultsand acquaint he overseas

youthwith Chineseunityand the present ituationromdifferent ngles.Onlyinthis

waycantheygeta betterunderstandingf ourmotherlandnd enhance heir enseof

recognition ndownership.18Guangdong rovincialOfficeof OverseasChineseAf-fairs19931

The agenda clearly fits within the larger policy that views overseas Chinese as

potential investors whose investmentsrepresentacts of patriotism-efforts to buildthe

652




motherland-as well as filial duty to their ancestors buried in China. P.R.C. discourse

on the Chinese abroad suggests thatpride in the motherland is something that can be

fosteredthrough

combinedexposure

to China's recent economicdevelopment

and to

Chinese traditional arts and heritage sites. These seemingly contradictory referencesto tradition and modernity stem from Chinese government discourses in which the

overseas Chinese embody both the Confucian traditions that preserve their Chinese-ness and also the capitalist know-how to help China catch up with the West (see Ong1999). It is uncertain,however, whether the visitinghuayi fit this model, as most are not

particularlypatriotic,Confucian,or rich,norarethey necessarily proudto be Chinese.These contradictions were evident at the Opening Ceremony for the 1994 youth

festival, held at the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou in July. The audience of Chinese

youth from abroad responded enthusiastically to a kung fu performancefeaturingthe

music fromthe popular Wong Fei Hong kungfu series. The earlier playing of the Chi-nese National anthem had received a distinctly more muted response.19

the "in search of roots" summer camp

It is a challenge for the P.R.C. government to (re)establish a relationship withthese new generations, whose cultural and political attitudes differ significantlyfrom official mainland Chinese discourse on overseas Chinese. Hua yi view their

participation in youth festival activities and their visit to their ancestral country in

complicated and often conflicting ways. Their encounters with China resonatewith larger questions about the tension between transnational forces and the na-

tion-state as well as the changing relationship between homeland and diasporaunder transnationalism. I explored these questions through fieldwork with Chi-

nese American participants in the youth festival who participated in a particularsummer camp program organized in San Francisco, as well as multi-sited partici-

pant observation and interviews with local Guangdong residents. My Chinese"fieldsite" was spread throughout the Pearl River Delta area in southern Guang-dong province.20 It was this terrain that the summer camp program introduced tothe "InSearch of Roots" youth, one of the summer camp groups that participatedin the youth festival. As part of their heritage tour of China, they journeyed fromancestral

villageto ancestral

village, visitingthe "hometowns" of each of the ten

participants. The majority of Chinese who came to the United States in the mid-1800s originate from this emigrant region, which is dotted with qiao xiang (emi-

grant villages).21The residents of these areas, therefore, have long been connectedto Chinese emigrant flows. I conducted interviews with local Chinese involvedwith the "Roots" tour (or similar programs) and the youth festival (for example,tour guides and Qiao Ban representatives) and with local residents in Guangzhou,Shenzhen, Taishan, and Zhongshan who had no direct association with the youthfestival. Ioffer a situated study of a particular group's experience of the youth festi-val. While the focus of the group's activities on family history and village visits

serves as a contrast, in its informality, to much of the official and choreographedritual of the youth festival, an examination of the program also reveals some char-acteristics of the formalized state ritual of the youth festival that are also playedout in interactions on a local level between regional officials, villagers, and visit-

ing hua yi. This balance of perspectives shows how changing relations betweenmainland Chinese and the Chinese abroad in the aftermath of the open policystimulate alternatives to official government discourses on overseas Chinese, aswell as how these official discourses no longer resonate with the experiences or

perceptions of the visiting hua yi.

653




FredChang (pseudonym), a participantin the "InSearch of Roots"program,con-ducted an informalpoll of the nine others in the group. He arrived at the conclusionthat

onlyhis

parentshad

strong objectionsto his

participationin the "Roots"

programand trip to China. His father, for reasons that Fred was not entirely aware, was es-

tranged from his relatives in China. After the death of Fred'sgrandfather,who had

emigrated from China, the family had stopped sending money to the village. His

mother, who was born in China, did not understandwhy Fredwanted to visit China.Afterall, Fred did not speak the language, and there were no longer any close rela-tives there. Fred himself had reservationsabout participating nthe program.He was astudent activist who identified stronglywith the broader "AsianAmerican"politicalmovement that, since the Third World Student Strike in 1968,22 had pushed for the

recognition of people of Asian descent in the United States as Americans. Researching

his Chinese heritage seemed a contradiction to his belief in a larger, pan-ethnic, U.S.-based identity politics. Still, some of Fred's friends had participated in the "Roots"

programthat the Chinese CultureCenter and the Chinese HistoricalSociety of SanFrancisco had jointly organized, and they hadfound itto be a worthwhile experience.Many other summer camp cultural heritage programswere assembled primarilyforthe visit to China, duringwhich they typically toured famous sites and explored Chi-nese history, arts, and language through formal study programs housed at Chineseuniversities.23The "Roots"programwas different in that itemphasized preparatoryre-

search, conducted over a semester-long period, during which participantsattendedlectures given by a noted Chinese American scholar on both Pearl River Delta and

Chinese American history. Inaddition, participants(also called interns)embarkedontheir own family historyand genealogical research.24They interviewed family mem-bers and searched for INS records that contained immigrationfiles for those relativeswho were detained at Angel Island or in Seattle duringthe period from 1882-1943,when most Chinese were excluded by law fromentry into the United States.

the trip to China

"SoyoucomefromAmerica,whatdotheycallyou,ABC's American-bornhinese]?Or is it Banana?"25urguideTonygreetsus,the fresh"InSearchof Roots" roupde-

partingrom he

Guangzhourain tation.

"No, hat'sAsianAmerican,"quickly nserted.Icouldn'tbelieve it. There was, inChina, he MiddleKingdom.Homeof myances-

tors.Icome hereto open mymindand,whenIstepoff thetrain,whatdoes theguidesay???Banana??????ow many yearsdid I spend re-educatingmyselfto be AsianAmerican? hiswould bea lesson.

[OpeninginesfromFredChang'snarrative]

Formost "Roots"interns,this was their firsttrip to China. With a send-off fromfriends and relatives,the groupboarded a flightfromSan Francisco to Hong Kong,ar-

riving early in the morningafter14 hours in the air.Within a few hours,they boarded

a train to Guangzhou, catching their first glimpses of mainland China as the trainpassed fields, construction sites, factories, and squatter camps on the two-and-a-half

hour ride. At Guangzhou, they emerged from the trainto find themselves in the mid-

dle of a bustling city of six million people. They laughed at ads for "Oil of Ulan"

(which looked suspiciously like "Oil of Olay"), dodged throngs of people rushingto

trains, recovered their luggage, went through customs, and made their way to the

Toyota Coaster mini-bus that awaited them. A local guide, a representativeof the

Qiao Ban,26greeted them on board, welcoming them to the city in polished English.During he next two weeks, they would visit between ten and twentyvillagesin counties

654




scattered throughout the Pearl River Delta Region.27They would stay in at least five

different hotels and attend an average of two banquets per day, put on in their honor

bylocal officials. All of these activities would take

place priorto their return to

Guangzhou, where they would take partin the youth festival.On the first evening in Guangzhou, Kevin, a 17-year-old high school senior,

commented that, if he did not know this was China, he would think it was a slum in

the United States.28He said that some of his Chinese American friends talk about liv-

ing in China-they imagine that the cities are modern, like Hong Kong, and the rural

areas are green and lush. None of them have been to China, he explained, nordo they

speak the language. Though he had seen very little of China himself at this point, he

said that China was not as great as they thought and he wanted to take pictures to

show them the real China. He, himself, could never live in China. "Physically, I'm

Chinese, but I was nurturedin America," he said. Moving to China would not be a

good escape from the problemshis friendsarefacing inthe UnitedStates,he concluded.

village visits

The village visits, which were referred o as "rootings"by the Chinese American

leader who accompanied the group,29 ollowed a general patternthat had developedbased on the experiences of previous trips.The night priorto visiting a particularvil-

lage, the Chinese American leader would meet with the intern for a briefingsession.

He would make sure that the intern reviewed all pertinent information,such as thename of the last ancestor to leave the village and the "real"versus "paper"names of

ancestors. Interrogation ranscripts rom INS files were re-read.30Though seldom for-

mally stated, the goals of the village visit were consistent: meeting any surviving rela-

tives or friends who knew the family, visiting the ancestral home, seeing graves of an-

cestors, visiting schools built with donations fromthe family, and locating the family's

genealogy book. The lattergoal fit in with the family historytheme of the programbut

also coincided with renewed interest in tracing genealogy on the partof many local

villagers with overseas Chinese connections. This interest stemmed partially from

government relaxation of restrictionson such practices, which were outlawed duringthe Cultural Revolution period (1966-76) when genealogy books and other vestigesof feudalism were supposed to be destroyed. Since that time, many villages found it

profitableto reaffirmgenealogical connections with the Chinese abroad, who had be-

gun coming back to look forthese books and possibly invest or donate. The village of

one Chinese American internin the Zhongshan region now employed a full-time his-torian and scholar. His job was to research the histories of the three surnames in the

village because of the many overseas Chinese interestedin tracingtheir rootsthroughthese lineages. Inanothervillage in the San Yi (c. Sam Yup)region, overseas Chinesehad financed the construction of a temple for a local deity. Yuen FongWoon observes

that post-open policy reforms have allowed the Guan in Kaiping county to rebuild

lineage ties, "provided they stimulate economic development and do not lead to therelaxation of political control"(Woon 1990).31 Otherstudies have documented the re-vival or reemergence of traditions,as temples have been rebuilt and festivals revivedin the post-Mao era, sometimes independently of overseas Chinese involvement (Pot-ter and Potter 1990; Siu 1990; Watson 1991). At the same time, many Pearl River

Delta Chinese whom the group met, both villagers and urbanfolk, had never seen a

genealogy book, nor did they appearto be particularly nterestedin such matters.

655




relatives or investment?

Each day was a whirlwind of activities as the guides whisked the group off to

banquets and receptions hosted by local officials. These matters of protocol com-prised a significant portion of time in village areas, and though these welcoming re-

ceptions helped formalize and legitimize the experience of "return,"some internswished they could spend more time in the villages. "Relatives or investment?"asked

Tom, a "Roots"participant,afterobserving that the group had yet again spent a rela-

tively shorttime in a village because they had another official banquet to attend. The

banquet would teach them about the region's growth and development due to over-

seas Chinese investments. Another intern commented that she thought China was

"playing itup"to the overseas Chinese in orderto encourage her generationto invest.Still another, in response, said that he doubted many people really would invest in

China in the future.While the parentsof many interns were already sending money to relatives, and

many interns said thatthey would like to continue the practice, it was also clear that

encouraging immediate investment may not have been the primary goal of the youthfestival and summer camp programs(as most youth were not in a position to invest).The official literaturedescribes a more basic goal for the activities:fosteringa "home-town concept" (xiangtuguan nian)and nostalgic emotion for the village.

Thegeneration f the overseas(youths)were bornandgrewupabroad,buttheyarerooted nChina.Theycome to theplacewhere heir orefathersived,and meetwitha

warmreception, ndtheyfeeltheirheartsouchedwhentheyhear he dialectspokenbytheir orefathers,rink hewater lowing n the homeland ormanyyears.[Guang-don ProvincialOfficeof OverseasChineseAffairs 993]

Though the visiting hua yi repeatedly heard the Chinese government's messageabout overseas Chinese patriotismand investment, this rhetoric did little to alter the

expectations of village visits that they brought with them to China from the UnitedStates.They had come with their own specific goals and viewed their "return"o their

villages throughthe lens of a Chinese American, family-based history.Theirattitudestoward China as an ancestralhomeland had been shaped primarilyby U.S. racial and

identity politics that marked them as perpetualforeignerswhose roots lay outside theUnited States.32 none sense, the offical welcome by the Chinese government evokeda sense of connection to China. After the youth festival's opening ceremony,Penelope remarked, "They must really want us to come back," and Christine said,

"They'reso nice. Ialmost feel an obligation to donate some money." These messageswere not central to the way that the internsconstructed their visit to China, however,and were even met with some distrustby participants.Tom repeatedly commented,"Relatives or investment?"For the majorityof the "Roots" nterns, the village visits,and not the youth festival,were the highlightof the trip. Inthe personal narrativesand

family histories that they wrote for the Chinese New Yeardisplay at the Chinese Cul-

ture Center of San Francisco, most internsfocused on the ways in which the visit toChina helped them fill in the missing pieces of their family trees, understand their

grandparentsor parentsin new ways by learningabout what they had been throughin

China, and discover a new perspective on being Chinese American.Ratherthan the essentialized and genericized Chinese culture presented at the

youth festival, most "Roots" interns identified with the particularsof their ancestral

villages introduced to them on their trip. These particulars represented for them theCantonese folk culture fromwhich their families originated.The youth festival's em-

phasis on the grandeurof Chinese "Culture"as embodied in more formal traditions

656




symbolized types of Chinese culturalcapital thatmany Chinese American particpantsfelt they lacked. The village visits, in contrast,provided a connection to folk practicesand

familytraditions that meshed more

closelywith the

peasantroots to which most

of the internstraced their heritage.

changing views toward overseas Chinese

At points during the Communist rule (especially during the Cultural Revolution

[1966-76]), mainland Chinese could not communicate with their overseas relatives.

Many Pearl River Delta residents describe the period priorto the open policy in thelate seventies as c. bai sat (md. bi si) or c. mong sat (mangsi), meaning thatthey were

naively blind, ill-informed, and blocked to the conditions both within and outsideChina. As mainland China opens up to the outside world, views about the Chinese

overseas are becoming more nuanced and complex.Lucy,a college student in Guangzhou, observed that while television shows sug-

gest thatthose overseas Chinese who return o the mainland are patriotic,33now peo-ple can think more critically about the truthof these statements. Through increasedmedia exposure and personal contact with overseas Chinese, many Guangdong resi-dents are realizingthat rather han being patrioticexpatriates,overseas Chinese are in

many ways different from mainland Chinese.34Increasingly,they make distinctions

among the Chinese abroad according to class, generation, and country of residence.

John Lim,a Guangdong native in his earlythirties who works fora large U.S. cor-

poration in China, has encountered numerous co-workers from Hong Kongand from

the United States, including Chinese Americans. He observed, "Chinese think that all

Chinese, no matter where they were born, where they live, are Chinese, the descen-dants of Yan and Huang emperors."John'sown sentiments are filled with contradic-tions between beliefs that he learned in school as a child and in the media and morerecent experiences with Chinese fromother countries. While he finds thatthere is lessof a "culturalgap" (c. man fa seung ge cha keuih) between mainland Chinese and

Hong Kongpeople than between mainlandersand Chinese Americans, he also con-siders Hong Kong people to be brusque and snobby, viewing themselves as superiorto the local Chinese.35He thinks that U.S.-born Chinese are "high-class Chinese" (c.

gou kap wah yahn). According to John,Chinese like to classify other Chinese by theirplace. Because the place where Chinese Americans live is powerful and rich,ChineseAmericans are considered high class. The first time he saw U.S.-born Chinese, he

thought they were "interesting."They don't speak Chinese and they eat Westernfood.But they still have "Chinese ways." From his interactions with Chinese Americans

through his work, he has come to view them as "bigchildren.""Theyare honest and

expose their feelings directly. They tell the truth,without hiding anything."Chinese

(in China) keep their attitudes, opinions, and feelings inside, because revealing themcan be dangerous. Chinese Americans couldn't get used to living in a Chinese society."Theywill be fooled by [mainland]Chinese, like a big child."

This "culturalgap" manifested itself in many observations of the hua yi made bymainland Chinese associated with the summer camp programs. These observationsmade by mainland Chinese imply that the cultural programs may not be as effectiveas their Chinese government planners may have hoped. An official from the Qiao Lian(a nongovernmental organization for overseas Chinese affairs) in Taishan county36and the office's driveraccompanied many summercamp groups on visits to ancestral

villages. They remarked that second and thirdgenerations often have different livinghabits, recalling one hua yi who would not eat Chinese food and another who, un-used to squat toilets, had to be taken to another county to use the bathroom. For

657




them, these incidents raised issues about whether huayi can still be consideredculturallyChinese.

The Qiao Lian official and his driver have receivedmany

summercamp groups,mostly from Canada and the United States. This official says they "come back" to

have a good time and to take a look at their ancestral houses, not necessarily to find

their own relatives but to see where their parentsor grandparentscame from. He hasobserved that most of the students are curious about the villages, especially the water

buffalo and chickens. He says that they like to take some items found in the village,such as dried gourds and pipes, back to the United States or Canada with them. The

villagers, he says, may not comprehend the meaning of searching for roots (Md. xun

gen c. chahm gan), but they understand the intentions of these young people comingback to the village.37 They talk about it excitedly, he explains, saying so and so's

granddaughteror son has come back. But, he adds, they cannot communicate withthem because they do not speak the same language. They just shake hands, pat eachotheron the shoulders, and take pictures.

A young woman employed by the school for returned overseas Chinese (hua

qiao bu xiao) in Guangzhou said that it was the goal of the summercamps to examine

the circumstances of historical change in ancestralvillages. She did not talk with visit-

ing Chinese youth about politics. She said that the Chinese American youth, com-

pared with students from other nations, seem particularlycurious about China and

Chinese culture. They like to askquestions about historyand architecture.Despite be-

ing influenced by foreign cultures, she said, the Chinese from abroadnevertheless still

have yellow skin and black hair.38This racial essence seemed to explain for her theperceived affinity for Chinese culture on the part of Chinese Americans who ex-

pressed interestin their heritage.Chinese American youth, however, clad in T-shirts (some proclaiming Asian

American pride)and shorts, loaded down with cameras and water bottles, and coatedwith insect repellant looked out of place in the villages. The "culturalgap" between

the visiting hua yi and local villagers had to be bridged by protocol and formalities or

mediated throughthe efforts of bilingual Qiao Ban, China Travel Service guides, the

Chinese American group leader, and occasionally some participants.While Chinese-

speaking interns could converse with the villagers,the village visits were orchestrated

in a way that constrained much of the dialogue. The "Roots"interns,who had be-come familiar with one another, interacted mainly among themselves in the villagesetting, while the local officials and relatives remained for the most part politely tothemselves. The guides often stood to the side looking bored.

overseas Chinese demystified

Before, when Guangzhou people mentioned the word Hong Kongguest (c. Heung

Gong haak), people would exclaim, "Aiya" in excitement. But by 1997, there won't

be much difference between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.

[MiddleSchool Teacher, Shenzhen]

Inone sense, Pearl River Delta residents have always been familiarwith, yet at

the same time distanced from those friends and neighbors who had gone abroad.39For residents of this area, overseas Chinese are not just abstractconceptualizationsfed to them throughgovernment propaganda.40They are friends, neighbors, and rela-tives who have had opportunities to go abroad and gamble at making a better living.The lives led by overseas Chinese representthe "potential lives" (Appadurai1991)Pearl River Delta residents imagine themselves as having.41The introduction of the

658




open policy and economic reformshas given many residents of the more prosperousPearlRiverDelta region a sense of being able to rely on their own abilities and the in-

formation available to them innegotiating

the terrainof thiscapitalist landscape.

In

the eyes of many residents, economic reform has both directly and indirectly pro-vided opportunities for individual economic development. The open policy and tran-

snational sources such as the printmedia, television, books, returningmigrants,and

touristshelped Guangdong Chinese see themselves as more informedand more able

to form comparisons between Guangdong and the rest of the world. They are begin-

ning to question the relations of power, class, and privilege within the Chinese state's

construction of a Chinese diaspora. In the past, overseas Chinese by virtue of their

mobility, foreign citizenship, access to information and goods, and economic posi-tion have been ascribed a position of superiorityover mainland Chinese by the state.42

Mr. Lau, a man in his forties, has lived all his life in ruralZhongshan county, aqiao xiang (emigrant village) not far from Macao. He attended school through the

sixth grade and worked much of his adult life as a farmer. Afterthe open policy, he

opened a small furniture actory in a nearbymarkettown. His village, like many in the

PearlRiverDelta, has a long historyof sending community members abroad, and this

continues today. Throughout his life, however, Mr. Lau's attitudes toward overseas

Chinese have changed. After returningfrom work, Mr. Lau usually watches Hong

Kongtelevision, especially the news, and U.S. shows such as 20/20 and 60 Minutes

on his 25-inch large-screen Sony television. His daughter says that both her parentsand grandmotherhave learned a greatdeal fromwatching Hong KongT.V.:43

Their hinking s moreopen. Theyknow aboutHongKongpeople'slives,andalsothose of people in Americaand Canada rommovies.Includingives of Chineseout-side.Theyknowmore aboutoutside,but don't know muchaboutinlandChinabe-causetheydon'twatchChineseT.V.or read he newspapers.Mostof the PearlRiverDelta s I kethat.

Mr. Lau said that he originallythought overseas Chinese had a status superiorto

his own. Now he's more familiarwith their situations, and he says, "Overthere, life

has its own difficulties." He used to want to go to Canada or Panama, but since the

implementation of the open policy (c. hoi fang, md. kai fang),he hasn'tregrettedstay-

ing in the PearlRiverDelta.

Before,one couldonlyfarm,andtherewas no goal [inlife]so one hadto go outside.Nowwe can makemoneyhere.Twenty earsagoinGuangdong, eopleadmiredhelife of overseasChinese.OverseasChinese ouldearna lot of money.Nowlife here s

gettingbetterandbetter.No one admires hemas much. Thedifferencehasbeenre-duced. Thisnewgeneration f immigrantsreworkersc. dagungjal).

Ifhe needs to choose between being a workerhere or outside, he said, he would preferto be a worker here.

Many Guangdong Chinese think of the Chinese abroad "thirdclass citizens" (di

san deng gong min), victims of racial discrimination. One 24-year-old female juniorcollege graduate, working for an U.S. company in Shenzhen, indicated that she was

not sure whether she would want to go abroad. In China, she has a circle of friends

and is familiarwith the society. She has the potential to be a "first lass citizen."

rethinking Chinese identities

The examples above illustratehow Guangdong Chineses rework attitudes and

assumptions both through renewed interaction with Chinese from abroad and

659




through less direct sources of information,such as the mass media, that bring in new

perspectives on life outside of China. These new images have complicated the officialstate model of the

wealthy, patrioticoverseas

Chinese,whose

yellowskin and black

hair attach him (they are almost always male) and his money to his native country.This model has been inextricablytied to China's birth as a nation-state(with Sun YatSen as the model hua qiao), and despite a period during Communist rule when con-

nections to overseas Chinese were viewed as subversive, has enjoyed a dynamic re-vival in the post-Mao period. It is evident, however, that China's new engagementwith global capitalism has broughtwith it culture and informationthat have begun to

shape the renewed interaction with overseas Chinese in ways that call into questionsome of the basic assumptions about the prevailing state discourse on the Chineseabroad. The youth festival representsan effort on the partof the P.R.C.to turn its atten-

tion toward the future, as it recognizes that generations of Chinese who have neverlived in China must be reintroducedto their motherlandthroughcultural ratherthan

political means. Butthe "culturalgap"that becomes glaringlyevident throughthe ex-

periences of the "Roots"group and participantsin the youth festival is evidence thatthe model of Chineseness, based on race as culture, may no longer be applicable tomuch of the diaspora.

The implications are many. The Western origins and comfortable economicstatus of the Chinese American participantsin the "Roots"programare the markersof

capitalist modernity; however, for many mainland Chinese whom I interviewed,these overseas youth in many ways representa lesser class of Chinese that knows little

about Chinese "culture"and has been negatively affected by racialdiscrimination inthe West. These hua yi embody a contradiction, as they retain the physical racial

markersof Chineseness without the cultural knowledge and attachment to mainland

China that is usually assumed to accompany these physical features. The youth festi-

val is perhaps derived from the Chinese government's fear about the future of rela-

tions between the P.R.C.and the Chinese abroad, as they see a widening culturaland

political gap between the mainland and the Chinese overseas. This gap has encour-

aged many mainland Chinese to rethink the concept of race as nation and questionthe patriotic and nostalgic sentiments of future generations of overseas Chinese for

their motherland.An additional question that arises from the breakdown of this new nationalist

model of modernity, as represented by the overseas Chinese, is whether capitalistmodernity still constitutes a viable future for the mainland. An alternative narrative

may be detected in the popularnationalism thatemerges as mainland Chinese engagein both direct and indirect interaction with the Chinese abroad.Coexisting with ideas

of triumphalcapitalism embedded in ethnic Chinese capital networksextending intoSoutheast Asia are new messages about the status of Chinese abroad,who no longernecessarily occupy positions of privilege in the minds of many Guangdong Chinese.

Throughout the history of Chinese emigration, connections fueled by capital have

stretchedthe boundaries of and redefinedwhat it has meant to be Chinese (orChineseAmerican), in this way shaping relations between partsof the diaspora.Chinese emi-

gration itself, and therefore the existence of "Chinese American"as a possible iden-

tity, is inextricably linked to the history of migrationfueled by the relationship be-

tween capital and labor-specifically, the need for cheap labor to feed the growingU.S. economy (Dirlik 1998). Inequalitiesin access to capital have historicallydefinedrelations between mainland Chinese and the Chinese abroad. This latest era, how-

ever, is marked by a shift in which overseas Chinese no longer are viewed as holdinga superior position in terms of access to social and economic capital. New views of

660




overseas Chinese as victims of discrimination who toil in low status and low payingjobs have replaced old ones privileging them. This change has occurred at the same

time thatGuangdong

Chinese have had increased access toopportunities

to obtaintheir own social and economic capital. Guangdong Chinese increasingly view Chi-nese in Hong Kong, LatinAmerica, the United States, and Canada as victims of dis-

crimination, living in countries that robthem of their"native"cultures and languages.As Ong (1999) notes, for the mainland Chinese government the desire to adopt

the model of the overseas Chinese capitalist stemmed from the ability of these over-

seas Chinese to retain Confucian (and therefore Chinese) values while still managingto negotiate within Western capitalist markets. The youth festival and summer camps,however, are an indication that while socialist mainland China may no longer be ableto claim Confucianism, it does possess itsown Chinese culturalcapital in the icons of

tradition desired by overseas Chinese-the ancestral villages, genealogy books, andother "places"that signify the roots of Chinese heritage. These symbolic resources of

heritage coexist with the growing prosperityof Pearl River Delta Chinese, who are

gaining increasing opportunitiesto earn capital. Perhapsa new stage in the relation-

ship between mainland China and the Chinese abroad is represented by a mainland-

centered Chinese modernity that is no longer as dependent on the capitalist knowl-

edge and Confucian values of the Chinese abroad.

conclusions

Certain approaches within transnational cultural studies have perhaps carried

the liberatory potential of transnational flows too far and are limited in the extent towhich they analyze how these flows arefiltered, shaped, and curtailed by specific so-

cial, political, and economic factors (see Ong's [1999:11] critique of Appadurai;see

also Smith and Guarnizo 1998). This ethnographic example of the youth festival em-

phasizes the importance of examining more closely the complex ways that Chinese

identities are reshaped in the context of these global flows, in ways that are both con-strainedby, but also challenge, pre-existingdiscourses about Chineseness as race andculture. Both mainlandChinese and Chinese Americanscreate discourses of Chinese-ness that are attached to flows of cultural and economic capital and span borders. In-

creased rates ofmigration

and transnational cultural flows associated withprocessesof globalization have created a transnationalpublic sphere that widens the parame-

ters for identity creation beyond the local. Transnational flows of people, capital,goods, and ideas have reworked opportunities for the exercise of the imagination in

everyday life (Appadurai1991). They have allowed Chinese Americans to imagineChina and create expectations for their visit, even before they set foot in China (see

Ang 1994). They have created ways for Guangdong Chinese to re-evaluate their livesin relation to those of the Chinese abroad, though in ways that demystify life abroad.What results are increased opportunitiesfor both local Chinese and visiting hua yi to

engage in experimental multiple cultural identities, while challenging government

models of nationalism centered in mainland China.While some of the transnational scholars discussed earlier view transnationalforces as weakening the nation-state, this ethnographic case supportsargumentsthathave been made about the ways that transnational forces can strengthen nationalist

projects (Brownell 1999; Ong 1999; Smith and Guarnizo 1998). My data point to thefurtherpossibility thattransnational flows may reinforce a type of popularnationalismthatdepartsfromofficial state versions.44

An assumption behind the ritual of the youth festival is that it would expose orcreate a common thread of Chineseness for its participants through exposure to

661




cultural and historical sites, shared performances, and the stirringof nostalgic emo-tion for the homeland. Chinese Americans, however, use theirvillage experiences forthe furtherformation of Chinese American identities that are not

solelyderivative of

the "place"of the ancestralvillage in mainland China (Malkki 1997). Inso doing, theycomplicate an assumption that forms the basis of essentialized characterizations ofChinese identities-that overseas Chinese are loyal to their native places inways builton nostalgic connections. Indeed, the experiences of most hua yi may differ signifi-cantly from those of a migrantof old returningto his or her native place and once

again seeing familiarsites, smelling familiarsmells, and reacquainting him or herselfwith relatives and friends. The activities of the "Roots" nterns were viewed by somemainland Chinese I interviewed as a tourist experience. One intern's aunt com-mented that the group was not really searching forroots because they were only in the

area for half a day. An overseas Chinese, returned from Vietnam, said that while hisown return o the motherland was a return o roots,the "InSearch of Roots"programswere a form of tourism. But as Edward Bruner(1996) notes in his analysis of AfricanAmericans"returning"o Elminacastle in Ghana, touristexperiences can be analyzedas partof the larger investigation of travel (Clifford1988, 1997) and the reevaluationof the term diaspora.

At the same time, this ethnographic example demonstrates the need to rethinkthe relationships between the nation-state, transnationalcommunities, and culturalflows. The youth festival demonstrates the prominence of the Chinese state as an actorin a larger process of reinventinga relationship(almost"fromscratch"[Schein 1998])

between the Chinese state and youth of Chinese descent abroad. At the same time,the emerging contradictions and ironies make it obvious that this complex, multi-fac-eted process of identity building creates a necessity for the P.R.C.government to reas-sess traditional ideas of what it means to be Chinese. Relationships are being re-worked from both ends through access to increased information about Chinese orChinese Americans made possible throughtransnationalcultural flows.

While there is no doubt that many of the youth festival participantsI interviewed

grew to feel a connection to China, a broaderanalysis of the festival and a closer ex-amination of the experiences of some of its participantscall into question the underly-ing existence of a shared Chinese identity and the festival's ability to create one. In-

stead, this example points to the existence of multiple narratives of the meaning ofGuangdong-as a site of ancestral heritage,as a prospering region increasinglydistin-

guishing itself from other partsof China and the Chinese abroad, and as a doorway to

modernity for the nation as a whole. The festival points to the tensions between theterritorialand de-territorialized nation-state (see Ong 1999:1 1), serving as a reminderthat in some cases, transnational flows sometimes have the effect of reterritorializingidentities in ways that call into question the very idea of a unified, essentialized trans-

migrantpopulation. The process of reterritorialization nvolves interactions betweenmainland Chinese and overseas Chinese that at the same time raise contrasts between

popular nationalisms thatemerge from local identitiesand official nationalisms.

notes

Acknowledgments.Fundingorthe ChineseAmericanportionof this researchwas pro-videdbythe Wenner-Gren oundation. nearlier ersionof thisarticlewas writtenwhileIwasa Mellon FellowatWashingtonUniversity, t.Louis,andpresentedat the "Transnationalismand the Second Generation"conference held at HarvardUniversityin April1998. Critical feed-back from Susan Brownell, Connie Clark,Steve Gold, Jane Margold,and Diane Mines was ex-

tremely helpful at various stages of writing. Thanks also to VictorJew and Adan Quan for their

662




supportand feedback on the writing process. Comments by the anonymous reviewers were in-

strumental to the re-working of this article. My deepest gratitude goes to the various Chinese

and Chinese Americans who sharedtheirviewpoints with me.

1. As one reader of a draft of this article observed, the use of the term abroad implies amainland-centered position. Throughoutthis article, Iuse abroadto referto mainland Chinese

categorizations of people of Chinese descent livingoutside of China as hai wai hua ren (literallyoverseas Chinese). Hai wai hua ren is a culturalistic and racial idea that signifies that, thoughoverseas Chinese may no longer be citizens of China, they are still "Chinese"by virtue of their

ancestry. Idiscovered, in searching for an alternativevocabulary positioned fromthe point of

view of Chinese outside of China, that it is very difficult to describe ethnic Chinese identities

without referring o China as the center (as in the terms Chinese diaspora, Chinese abroad, and

overseas Chinese).2. Hai wai indicates that they are fromoverseas, and hua yidescribes them as descendants

ofChinese

abroad. Thiscategory

can bedistinguished

from huaqiao (often

translated as "over-

seas Chinese"), a loaded term implying political commitment, which is used for citizens of

China who are living abroad, and tong bao, or compatriot, which is reserved for the people of

Taiwan and Hong Kong (priorto 1997). For the purposes of this article, however, I sometimes

use the English erm overseas Chinese to refer o hua yi.3. Guangdong province has spearheaded economic reforms that have made China the

fastest growing economy in the world. Since Deng Xiao Ping's decision in 1978 to implementthe open door policy and economic reforms(gai ge kai fang), the province has undergone dra-

matic changes in all sectors. As reformeffortsmoved from the center toward the coast, Guang-

dong became known as the nan da men, the southern door to China, open to new ideas and

welcoming capital from overseas investors, especially overseas Chinese. Itsphysical proximity

and culturalties to nearby Hong Kongled to the decision to open three special economic zones(SEZ) n 1978 in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou (opened in 1980), which have focused on

marketreformsand infrastructurebuilding (Yeungand Chu 1994) and stimulatedforeign invest-

ment throughan incentive system.4. The treatyof Nanjing in 1842 proclaimed the Qing empire's responsibilityfor its over-

seas subjects (Wanget al. 1988:1 21). Inthe early 1900s, the Qing took a more aggressive stance

on overseas Chinese affairs."Toprotect hua qiao became directly linked to the policy of pro-

tecting Chinese merchantsgenerally against foreign competition. This, in turn, led to the crucial

matterof who was and who was not a Chinese subject and how to induce the Chinese to remain

Chinese" (Wang et al. 1988:124). Qing policy set the precedent for laterjus sanguinis policiesof the Republic, Nationalist, and Communist governments (Fitzgerald1972:6), which "claims

in theory jurisdiction over all persons of Chinese blood, no matter for how many generationstheir ancestors have lived abroad"(Chen 1940:2). In1954, the P.R.C.chose to abandon the pol-

icy of jus sanguinis and entered a period of decolonization of the overseas Chinese in Southeast

Asia. Inhis 1957 speech in Rangoon, Chou EnLaiencouraged the Chinese there to assimilate to

the local environment, acknowledging that overseas Chinese were hua yi, people of Chinese

descent, and citizens of their countries of residence in SoutheastAsia.

5. Ong (1999) discussesthese dynamics in the broadercontext of Chinese transnationalism.

6. As Susan Brownell notes, official state discourses often define the terms of public cul-

turedebate "either because it seeks to control them, or because counterdiscourses emerge in al-

most direct opposition to it"(1999:209). In a similarsense, official policies toward the Chinese

abroad thatshape

theyouth

festival set thestage

for debates aboutmeanings

of Chineseness sur-

roundingthe festivals.

7. Thanksto Diane Mines for helping me clarifythis point.8. Smith and Guarnizo observe that nations often foster transnational connections with

their migrantsabroad, both in the process of seeking statehood (as in the cases of Israel,Greece,and Armenia)and in strengtheningthe nation-statethroughremittances (see Mahler 1998).

9. In her work on the establishment of a transnational organization linking the Miao, a

Chinese minority, to ethnic Hmong in the United States, Southeast Asia, and other partsof the

world, Louisa Schein (1998) observes the ways inwhich "diasporics,""transmigrants,"nd "ex-

ile communities" are discussed by theorists as being in conceptual tension with nations and

663




states. A closer examination of the practices of the Hmong and Miao forces us to question a

number of basic assumptions that are often made about border-crossingpractices. These popu-lations are normally characterized as being internally homogeneous, which may reflect the as-

sumed coherence ascribed to populations removed from their base of territorialnationalism(1998:185). Their relationshipwith the "homeland"is often characterized in terms of nostalgic

feelings and remittances. Inaddition, diasporic populations are cast as minorities in relation to

the "territoriallyentered" majority(1998:186). The Hmong and Miao, however, do not possessan internal cultural or political unity, nor do they necessarily share nostalgia for a common

homeland. Hmong and Miao in the United States, Laos,China, and elsewhere find themselves

enmeshed within dissimilarpolitical hierarchies.

10. Here, I draw upon Schein's (1998) argumentabout the dialectical processes between

transnational populations and the state, made in relation to her research on Miao and Hmongtransnational sm.

11. According to Kertzer 1988), ritualsare importantvehicles for legitimatingand chang-ing political systems. Ritualsare used to create and display a sense of political unityor collective

identity,they can be called upon to symbolically unite the constituent partsof a political party,an organization, a tribe, or a nation. Ritualsare powerful because they combine a varietyof di-

verse sentiments under a common set of symbols (a national flag, a sacred relic) and create a

sense of unitythrough collective participation.The youth festival invokes the power of ritualto

be stable in formyet flexible in content, in this way subsuming a diversityof Chinese identities

within a display of unity.12. Therefore, assumptions about the relationship between lines of kinship and attach-

ment to territoryhave a long historythat pre-datesnot only China's recentopening, but also the

modern Chinese nation-state. These principles have not only been applied in the presentas part

of an official political policy in relation to wealthy overseas Chinese investors, but in the pasthave been reflected in the behavior of poor emigrants who continued to send remittances to

relatives (see Hsu in press).13. There are winter and summer sessions held to coincide with the school vacations of

various countries. Iattended the festival in 1992, 1994, and 1995. Eachtime, Iparticipatedas a

member of a Chinese American group-the firsttime as a "Roots" ntern,the second time as a

participant-observerwith the "Roots"program,and the third time as a member of a San Fran-

cisco-based group. Most of those involved in the festival participatethroughvarious Chinese as-

sociations and programsin their respective countries.

14. Theseprogramswerejointlyorganizedbythe Officeof OverseasChinese AffairsHuaQiaoShi WuBanGong Shi)and ChinaTravelService(ZhongLu).ChinaTravelService,which is govern-ment-owned, supplied guides, and handled many of the logisticalaspects of the dailytrips.

15. Mooncakes (yue bing)are traditionally ervedduringthe Mid-AutumnFestival.Theyare

typicallyfilled with lotus seed pasteor black bean pasteandaredeep fried.Thismooncake, made bythe Qu Xiang Bakeryin Guanzhou, measured 1.5 m in diameter, and weighed 208 kilograms(mooncakesarenormallya few inches indiameter).A souvenirpostcardcalled it "thecrystallizationof wisdom and artof cakes-making.Italso displays he productivecapacityof the enterprise."

16. Perhaps in keeping with the themes of overseas capital for development and cultural

pride as Chinese, the group took a new modern superhighway that stretchedfrom Guangzhouto Shenzhen. It had been built with overseas capital, and the group took it enroute to Shenzhen

where they were to soak in Chinese traditionin the formof miniaturized Chinese monuments

andsinging

Chinese minorities.

17. This produced a disgusted response from one local official who was viewing the book

with me. Water buffaloare considered to be dirtyworkanimals, and a number of mainland Chi-

nese I interviewed commented on the strange fascination that the overseas Chinese youthseemed to have with them.

18. The reference to "skeptical"attitudesperhaps refers to the fact that upon its initial re-

opening to the outside world, both government officials and Chinese citizens realized that

China had fallen behind during its long isolation. Overseas Chinese were called upon to help

bringChina into the modern world to allow fordevelopment without deracination (Ong 1999).Theirparticipationwas explained in official discourses in terms of their love forthe motherland.

664




This reference may also refer to the danger for many Chinese abroad of being associated politi-

cally with mainland China duringmuch of the Cold Warera.

19. It is likely that the audience at the youth festival was more familiarwith the rousing

music of the Wong Fei Hong series and with stylized kung furepresentationsof Chinese culturethan it was with the P.R.C.'snational anthem and the daily bodily practices associated with na-

tional rituals. This film series has achieved semi-cult status among kung fu flick aficionados

around the world. The response of the audience at the youth festival demonstrates the power of

a popular culture production (out of Hong Kong),which references a historical and fantastical

China, to evoke a connection to an imagined China forChinese aroundthe world. Thisexampleillustrates that formany, especially those whose connection to China is generations removed, it

may no longer be possible to assume a congruence between acknowledgment of a Chinese

heritage and patriotic allegiance to the Chinese nation-state. The old narrativesequating Chi-

nese racial heritage with patriotismare being unraveled. Just as youth of Chinese descent out-

side of China find more familiaritywith transnational cultural productions of Chineseness thanwith state ritualsof patriotism,mainland Chinese are beginning to participate in transnational

processes that bringthe Chinese abroad into the realmof their daily imaginations, providing al-

ternatives to stateconstructions of an overseas Chinese-derived modernity.20. The primaryemigrant regions are represented by the cultural and geographical areas

of San Yi, Si Yi, Zhongshan, and Bao An.

21. Emigrantvillages can often be identified by the distinctive Western-influenced archi-tecture of some of their homes built with overseas Chinese money and by the predominance of

schools, roads, or other things donated by the overseas Chinese.22. The Third World Student Strike, in which students of color demanded ethnic studies

courses to reflect their own histories and cultures in the United States,took place at San Fran-

cisco State. This event marked the birthof Asian American studies.23. The pamphlet advertising the 1994 Zhongshan city Chinese American Youth Lan-

guage and CulturalProgramreads:

This study tour is a summer programfor students interested in studying Chinese language(Mandarin)and observing and experiencing present day social and economic conditionsin the fast-growing Guangdong Province of the People's Republicof China.

Sponsors:Overseas Chinese Affairsof Zhongshan CityOverseas Chinese Affairsoffice of GuangzhouOverseas Chinese Affairsoffice of Jiangmen City

New China EducationFoundation, USA

Open to Chinese Americanstudents n the U.S. and Canada, 18-28, limited o 100 students.

Curriculum:Mandarin anguage classes five days a weeks and lecture series on China (cul-

ture, arts,history,etc.). Inaddition there will be day field tripsto nearbysites and weekendfield tripsto other areas in the Province (i.e., Guangzhou, Zhuhai).Optional "Roots"visits

to ancestral villages in or near Zhongshan City at the student's own expense-dependingon study schedule.

24. Inthis sense, the "Roots"programwas not "typical."Despite some diversity,the groupwas largely self-selected, in terms of personal interest in issues of heritage and class back-

ground. Like Fred,most of the Roots interns (ten participatedeach year)were second, third,orfourthgeneration and of Cantonese descent. This was a program requirement,as logistics lim-ited group travel to a region of China that could be covered by ground transportationover a pe-riod of a couple of weeks. Inaddition, there is a historical connection between San FranciscoChinatown and this region.

While some spoke Cantonese, or a village dialect quite fluently, having leftChina or HongKongas small children or having learned from their parents, most did not know how to read orwrite Chinese. The majorityof interns did not live in Chinatown. Many lived in the Richmonddistrict of San Francisco, or in EastBay, South Bay, or Marin county. For some families and

665




individuals, the tripwas not easily affordable. The programrequireda fee of $450 plus airfare o

China, which usually ranabout $900. Internscame to the programin a varietyof ways-somehad found out about the program through friends or classmates. Others had families involved

with the Chinese CultureCenter, which sponsored the program.One high school student an-nounced the program over her school's intercom during morning announcements for two

weeks before itdawned on her that she qualified for it. Anothercollege student heard about it in

his Mandarin Chinese class at a privateCaliforniauniversity, quickly realizing that he was the

only student of Cantonese descent in the room.

25. The terms ABC and banana have negative connotations associated with assimilation to

white U.S. society. A "banana" s yellow on the outside, but white on the inside.

26. This official government office has branches at all regional levels. The GuangdongProvincial Office of Overseas Chinese affairssponsored the China portion of the "InSearch of

Roots"program'svisit to China.

27. In recentyears, participants

have had toopportunity

to visit both maternal andpater-nal villages throughthe program.

28. Perhapsthe numbers of workers from innerareas living in the streets of the city struck

Kevin. Guangdong's economic prosperity has attractedthrongs of workers from rural inland

China. They arrive without residence rightsand receive little support from the city. They are

viewed as the majorsource of social problems and are ill-treated.

29. The group leader in this case was a community educator involved in the Chinese Cul-

ture Center. He spoke a number of local Chinese dialects and played many roles duringthe trip,from dealing with local officials, to resolving logistical issues, to playing the role of translator

and cultural mediatorduringthe village visits.

30. Thisprocess was considered important o the tripand was taken quite seriously. Inone

case, to vary the routine, the transcriptswere read aloud to the leader by a helpful internusingan "Indian"accent similar to Apu's on The Simpsons. This readingdid not indicate disrespectfor the materialbut rathera de-mystification of the process of roots-searching.

31. In their attemptto revive the pre-communist glory of the complex lineage system that

had organized the Guan lineage of (Kaiping) ince the 17th century, overseas Chinese contrib-

uted to the building of schools, the renovation of historic buildings, and the construction of a

Guan lineage library Woon 1989).32. Similarly,Schein (1998) notes that while Miao and Hmong co-ethnics come together

around common geographical origins in China (formost Hmong, a mythical China), their rela-

tions are also strongly shaped by the largercontext of U.S.-China relations,and the inequalitiesin power and privilege that arise from living in these particularplaces.

33. These overseas Chinese are usually prominent and quite wealthy businessmen whodonate to or invest in their hometowns.

34. See Yang 1997 for a detailed description of how overseas Chinese have become partof the mainland Chinese imaginarythroughvarious formsof media.

35. As Smart and Smart (1998) note, despite linkages between Hong Kong and Guang-

dong Chinese based on shared origins, there also exist more negative perceptions of the "ugly

Hong Konger."36. The majorityof emigrants who settled in major U.S. Chinatowns in the late 19th and

20th centuries were from this region, which boasts that there are more Taishanese living abroad

than living in the mainland.

37. The word return hui lai c. faan laih) is used, even though it is known that most of the

Chinese youth (huayi) had never been to theirvillages before.

38. Non-official views elicited from many informantson why these hua yi take partin the

camps vary in the degree to which they are thought through critically. Many informants in

China said that it was because they loved their motherland and wanted to search for their roots

(xun gen). They cited sayings such as "yan huang zi xun" (descendants of the yellow emperor)and "ye luo gui gen" (the leaf falls back to itsroots)that assume spiritual,historicallyrooted con-

nections to China. Others examined the Chinese government's motivations more closely and

said directly that intentions were to draw investments fromthe Chinese abroad. Stillothers said

that the hua yi were merely curious to find out what theirvillages were like.

666




39. For a discussion about how a sense of community between Taishan and its residents

overseas was built and maintained, see Hsu in press.40. Throughoutmodern Chinese history, the state media has portrayedoverseas Chinese

in various, often contradictoryways-as traitors,as those who followed the capitalist way, andas patrioticsons whose obligation it was to help build the Chinese nation.

41. This is similarto MayfairYang's (1997) discussion regardingthe role of the media in

creating desires for Shanghai residents. Iargue further hat these flows account not only for de-

sires, but also oppositional formsof identity.42. This viewpoint is not solely the result of government constructions of the Chinese

abroad, although through itsattemptsto communicate this image of overseas Chinese, the statehas presented a skewed image of overseas Chinese as rich capitalists and has made specific ef-forts to give those who contribute to China official praise and recognition. Similar inequalitieswithin a co-ethnic transnational community exist between Miao minorities and overseas

Hmong,as discussed

bySchein (1998).

43. The number of color televisions owned by Guangzhou households increased from 40

percent in 1986 to 90 percent in 1990 (cited in Yeung and Chu 1994). See Lull 1989 for the in-fluence of television on mainland Chinese viewers.

44. Thanks to Susan Brownell for helping me clarifythis point.

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acceptedJanuary 20, 2000final versionsubmitted March 9, 2000

Andrea Louie

Departmentof Anthropology354 Baker Hall

Michigan State UniversityEastLansing,Ml 48824

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Reterritorializing Transnational Ism Chinese Americans and the Chinese Motherland