Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, 2011

Migrations of Chineseness: in conversation with Ien Ang

Sharmani Patricia GABRIEL

Ien Ang was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

from 2529 September 2009 as a guest of
the University of Malayas Research Cluster on Social and Behavioural Science. In
Kuala Lumpur, she had a packed schedule, meeting academics and postgraduate
students and holding a roundtable on
research with local and visiting faculty.
When she sat down for this interview, she
had just the evening before delivered a
well-attended public lecture on the topic,
Towards a cosmopolitan multiculturalism:
Intercultural dialogue without guarantees.
Ang is the author of several notable
books, including Watching Dallas: Soap Opera
and the Melodramatic Imagination (1985),
Desperately Seeking the Audience (1991), and
her collection of essays called On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West
(2001). Her most recent book is the coauthored volume, The SBS Story: The Challenge of Cultural Diversity (Ang et al. 2008).
In On Not Speaking Chinese, a seminal
work on issues of migration, multiculturalism, and the politics of identity and difference, Ang draws on the lived legitimacy of
autobiographical experience to theorize
about the stupendous cultural ruptures
that define the new century. Angs
personal biography itself reveals how
diaspora and its disjunctures have cut her
life in three; one life lived in Indonesia,
where she was born and raised until the
age of twelve, and the other two in the
Netherlands, where she lived until 1991,
and Australia, where she lives her life
today. She has spent the last 20 years or so
trying to make sense of those sutures of
belonging and what clue, if at all, they
may hold for understanding the complexities of contemporary identity. Or perhaps
spgabriel@um.edu.my
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she has simply accepted that diaspora

and its vagaries are an ingrained part of
her life, of who she is.
Born in postcolonial Surabaya to a
middle-class peranakan family in thrall to
the national idea of Indonesia before
their eventual migration to the Netherlands and her subsequent relocation as an
adult to Australia, Ang is an ethnic
Chinese who speaks English, Dutch, and
Bahasa Indonesia. But not Chinese. Travelling to Taiwan for the first time in 1992
for a conference, Ang observed that the
people there were baffled that she
couldnt understand them when they
spoke to her in Chinese. This moment of
acute contradiction why I, a person with
stereotypically Chinese physical characteristics, could not speak to them in
Chinese marked the beginning of her
attempts to understand the meanings of
Chineseness in diaspora. If in Taiwan she
was expected to speak Chinese and in
Indonesia often told by the indigenous
Javanese to go back to your own country,
in the West in the Netherlands where
she lived for 25 years from 1966 and now
as a permanent resident of Australia
Ang says she was (and still is) routinely
asked, even by well-meaning people,
where do you really come from?
In all of the places where she has
made her home in Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Australia it was the fact of
Angs Chineseness that lay at the root of
the perception that she was an outsider,
someone who didnt really belong.
Indeed, the glaring dissonance between
that myth of origins and the realities of
diaspora, between where youre from and
where youre at of not speaking Chinese

ISSN 14649373 Print/ISSN 14698447 Online/11/01012210 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14649373.2011.532977

Migrations of Chineseness 123

while looking Chinese has become a metaphor of immense cultural and political
significance. It has also created the context,
and the credibility, for her academic career.
Since 1996, when she moved from Murdoch
University in Perth to take up an appointment as Professor of Cultural Studies at the
University of Western Sydney (UWS), Ang
has been busy establishing a space where
arguments about identity and difference can
be made. In 2001, she became the founding
Director of the Centre for Cultural Research
at UWS, where she is currently Distinguished Professor and also an Australian
Research Council Professorial Fellow.
In all of those roles, as well as in her
research, writings, and lectures, Ang has
sought to explore how the postcolonial
world has to be shaped by our understanding of difference, by the need to live, not
merely exist, with each other. She has recast
the complex entanglements of diasporic
identity into an in-between strategy that
troubles binaries of identity and notions of
cultural authenticity to mobilize new cartographies of desire and attachment for our
multicultural world. For Ang, hybridity,
creolization, and syncretism are not merely
academic concepts but living realities that
are urgently needed to break down barriers
of understanding between centre and
margin, black and white, Asia and the West.
The following interview is based on a
personal meeting I had with Professor
Ang at the University of Malaya on 29
September 2009.
Gabriel: I would like to begin by asking you
what you have spent a good deal of the last
two decades trying to find answers for, or at
least trying to come to terms with what
does your Chineseness mean to you?
Ang: To me, because I grew up in Indonesia,
being Chinese was almost always a label
more than anything else. Even though my
father was a peranakan Chinese who never
spoke any Chinese, his family had not
spoken any Chinese for generations, for
some reason his family was still called a
Chinese family. What that Chineseness

meant was never quite clear to me because

even our food was a mixture of Indonesian
and Chinese. We did eat pork, for example.
But for my mother, because she lived part of
her youth in China with her parents, she did
speak Mandarin. But she never wanted to
pass that language on to her children
because in Indonesia, at that time, it was
perilous to speak Chinese. My mother said it
was important for us Chinese people to
assimilate into Indonesian society. So even
though we were always told we were
Chinese, at the same time we had to
renounce it at home. So somehow to live as a
Chinese person but at the same time not
Chinese it was really from very early on for
me a very contradictory position and also
one quite difficult to come to terms with.
Gabriel: It is clear that your Chineseness,
however ambivalent or contradictory its
meaning, was never allowed to become, for
you, a source of cultural pride. Although
you were born with the typical Chinese
name of Ang May Ien, somehow over the
years you had morphed into Ien Ang. I am
wondering if your (re)naming, of sorts,
suggests a sloughing off of a troubling
ancestral identity. But for now can you tell
me a little more about Indonesias peranakan
Chinese community?
Ang: This has to do with the different waves
of migration from China. The peranakan have
been in Southeast Asia, in the Straits of
Malaya and Indonesia, for many, many
generations even before the Europeans
arrived. The more recent migrations from
China happened in the late 19th century, and
they are a much larger group than the peranakan. And they are the ones who actually
dominate the Chinese community. The
peranakan have always been smaller. This
main group of Chinese, the totok as they are
called in Indonesia, were much more focused
on maintaining their Chinese identity. They
were the ones who also, when the situation
became difficult in Indonesia, went back to
China, or if they stayed back in Indonesia
were the ones who suffered very much from
not being able to go to Chinese schools. After

124 Sharmani Patricia Gabriel

the fall of Suharto [in 1998] there was the
resurgence of such groups. Even now in
Indonesia I have been told there are quite a
lot of tensions between the different options
that the Chinese might want to make. There
is a Chinese Indonesian political party, as far
as I know, which like my family once did is
trying very much to claim Indonesianness.
But there are also Chinese groups that are
much more focused on China.
Gabriel: Do you see any parallels between
the Chinese populations of Indonesia and
Malaysia?
Ang: Perhaps in the Indonesian context, it
might have been more extreme than here in
Malaysia because in Malaysia when
Malaysia became an independent country,
on the one hand of course there was Malay
dominance but at the same time there was
this gesture towards well, we are a multiracial society because the Chinese as a
minority are much larger in Malaysia than in
Indonesia. So that difference made it impossible in Malaysia to somehow turn a blind
eye to a minority community that was in fact
quite large in terms of numbers. To me, Ive
always found that, in the Indonesian
context, being a minority Chinese person,
you always had to somehow struggle with
who you are.
Gabriel: In what ways did you and your
family interact with the mainstream or totok
Chinese?
Ang: We didnt engage with them at all. We
had our own networks.
Gabriel: It seems an odd thing to say. After
all, your own mother spoke and wrote
Chinese fluently.
Ang: Yes, she did, but she wouldnt negotiate with them. We actually wanted to be
Indonesian, not Chinese. The fact that we
were Chinese was just a legacy of the past,
to be regretted in some way. We wanted to
be Indonesian. We wanted to separate
ourselves from totok Chinese.

Gabriel: Did this sense of separateness

prevail among other peranakans as well?
Ang: Yes, they too wanted to separate themselves from the totok Chinese who were
more China focused. We were not China
focused. Basically we were Indonesia
focused and it made us Indonesian. But
Indonesia made it hard for us. My parents
were very clear that after Indonesian Independence they wanted to contribute to Indonesian society.
Gabriel: What everyday Chinese practices
did you and your family have to give up in
order to be accepted as Indonesians?
Ang: Language, of course, was a major
thing.
Gabriel: Not religion?
Ang: No, because my parents became Christians.
Gabriel: So being Christian was permissible?
Ang: Yes, being Christian was okay. We
were a minority, of course, but there were a
lot of Javanese who were also Christians.
But, of course, that was another aspect of
being a minority community.
Gabriel: So you or your mother had to show
by wearing the kebaya, for instance, that
you were cultivating an Indonesian identity
and not a Chinese one?
Ang: Yes. But because we were peranakan,
we were already decultured in a way; we
were already very un-Chinese in our
practices.
Gabriel: But this whole idea of wanting to
become Indonesian, what was it about?
What other Chinese or peranakan traditions
did you and your family have to forego?
Ang: It was about being an independent
postcolonial nation. We were proud. We

Migrations of Chineseness 125

wanted to be part of that new nation. It was
not so much that we had to forego anything.
That was not discussed by the state necessarily. It was much more of a positive interpretation in terms of, you are part of
Indonesia now and you are Indonesian if
you speak Bahasa Indonesia, if you sing the
national anthem. You are Indonesian by
being a good Indonesian citizen, by contributing to Indonesian society.
Gabriel: Given your familys efforts to
assimilate by erasing as many traces of
Chineseness as possible, were you accepted
by the majority Javanese?
Ang: No, theirs was the worst discrimination
I experienced in Indonesia. The discrimination was not so much from the state but on the
level of civil society, in ordinary, everyday
relations with the Javanese.
Gabriel: Had this to do with the perception,
as in other societies where they are a minority community, that the Chinese control the
economy?
Ang: Yes. The perception is that the Chinese
control business, that we are always richer.
Gabriel: But surely the ethnic divide wasnt
as rigid as all that. Couldnt the Chinese
count friends among the Javanese?
Ang: Well, that can happen. But overall we
didnt have Javanese friends. There was no
explicit day-to-day hostility but there was a
distance.
Gabriel: What about at school, when you
were growing up? Did you experience
discrimination along ethnic lines?
Ang: No, I did not. But I went to a missionary school established by Dutch nuns, later
taken over by Indonesians. Because it was a
Catholic school, and a good school, a lot of
upper-class Javanese children were sent
there. One of the things, though, that I
remember is sometimes during school days
we all had to bring something to eat. And of

course the Javanese would bring Javanese

food, and we peranakan Chinese would bring
our lumpia. The food was then tasted, as
some kind of a contest, and it was always the
case that the Javanese food won. [laughter]
Gabriel: Were you aware, as a young child,
that you were being discriminated against
by the Javanese?
Ang: Yes. Very strongly. Children can be
very cruel.
Gabriel: How did your parents react to
what was going on?
Ang: My mother, because I was the oldest
child, my mother always took me in her
confidence. She used to tell me, make sure
that you dont flaunt your Chineseness. In a
very conscious way she used to tell me that.
My sister and I had wanted to learn to write
Chinese. We were very interested in the
characters. We would ask our mother
mum, can you teach us? No, she would say,
I dont want to. Its not good. Chinese
culture is bad for you. Thats what she
would say. Maybe my mother was extreme
in that respect but it was a very assimilationist mindset which she thought was in the
best interests of her children.
Gabriel: You must have found it very hard
because the nuances of suppression of your
Chineseness had to be dealt with from
within your own family.
Ang: Yes, it was. But that resonated because
we were often objects of ordinary discrimination, the petty, day-to-day tauntings, such
as the shouting of Cina Cina.
Gabriel: Clearly, in such instances, as you
say in your autobiographical opening essay
in On Not Speaking Chinese, the Chineseness
imposed on you by the dominant culture
was something that was unnatural, one to
be rebelled against. The exclusion you and
no doubt others felt must have fuelled the
desire of the Chinese both totoks and
peranakans to integrate into mainstream

126 Sharmani Patricia Gabriel

culture and society. Was there also an official programme of assimilation?
Ang: Yes, especially during the Suharto
period, after we left in 1966. As far as I
know, for example, the teaching of religion
was forbidden, names had to be changed,
identity cards were introduced where you
had to state that you were a Chinese
person. I think one of the issues in the
history of Indonesia and especially in the
colonial period was indeed that the
Chinese and the Javanese were separated.
The postcolonial explanation was always
that the Dutch had a divide-and-rule
policy, in the way perhaps that the British
had here in Malaysia. That that [the divideand-rule policy] was actually the seed of
hostility between the Javanese and the
Chinese. Even my mum used to tell me
that. But I dont buy into this kind of mechanistic theory. It was not just the colonial
government setting that [the separation
between the Chinese and Javanese] up. It
was also the people. There certainly was
separation as it was an apartheid policy
that the Dutch introduced. But later on,
Sukarno, in the very early period of his
government, was very friendly with the
Chinese, including my father, an engineer
who had an important role to play in the
development of the nation. We acquired
Indonesian passports. I think that that transition from a colonial to a postcolonial
period is an absolutely crucial period to
look at historically, in terms of how certain
truths suddenly were positioned differently. Before independence, it was the
Dutch who had the power and after that it
was the Indonesian nationalists who dominated. It was the Javanese who now had
the power. And for a lot of Chinese it was
quite a shock to think differently, as to who
they now had to answer to.

Gabriel: Why was your parents longing for

an Indonesian national identity so strong
despite the discrimination they faced?
Ang: I dont quite know, to tell you the
truth. Perhaps it was their sheer will to give
us a better life.
Gabriel: But werent they disillusioned at
their failed project at Indonesianization?
Ang: Yes, and that is why we left for the
Netherlands. We had a very strong desire to
be Indonesian. But then were rejected. At
least thats how my parents felt it. After we
left, my father did not want to have
anything more to do with Indonesia.
Gabriel: How did you feel about leaving
Indonesia?
Ang: I loved Indonesia. I really did not
want to go. On the one hand there was all
that discrimination, but on the other hand I
desperately wanted to be Indonesian. I did
not want to leave. I felt very nationalistic
about being Indonesian. The first few years
that we were in the Netherlands I had a
very strong sense that I would go back to
Indonesia. But the interesting thing is that,
once we were in the Netherlands, we
called ourselves Chinese not Indonesians.
[laughter]
Gabriel: Thats an interesting reversal. But
was that because you and your family
wanted to put your back up on years of
discrimination in Indonesia by renouncing
your Indonesian identity in your newly
adopted home?

Gabriel: But even among the non-Chinese

Indonesians, wasnt there a hierarchy that
differentiated the Javanese from the rest?

Ang: Well, we still ate mostly Indonesian

food at home, nyonya food; we did not
renounce all that. For a long time we did not
think, it did not even occur to us to think,
that we could come from anywhere else. We
were Chinese but from Indonesia. That was,
for us, how it was.

Ang: Yes, definitely. The Javanese were at the

top of the hierarchy in Indonesian politics.

Gabriel: Did things improve for you in the

Netherlands?

Migrations of Chineseness 127

Ang: When we moved to the Netherlands,
the same things happened but in a slightly
different way, as it was now coming from a
European perspective. The Dutch would
always ask me are you Chinese? Id say,
Im from Indonesia. When you were small
you did not quite understand the implications of all those things. But, and I think I
describe this in On Not Speaking Chinese
(Ang 1994), it began to slowly dawn on me
that this problem of ethnic identity has a
political meaning, its not just a personal
problem. Its actually a structural and
cultural problem in society. It has political
implications. It always has to do with claims
of authenticity and inauthenticity. So when I
used to say Im a Chinese but I dont speak
Chinese to those westerners, who included
people who claimed to be experts in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian societies,
when I said to them, I am Chinese but I
dont speak Chinese, they would then very
easily and without irony say, then you must
be a fake Chinese. I remember feeling so
angry, but what could I have done then? But
to me, later on, there was a theoretical way
to deal with it. To me as an intellectual, you
have that privilege and that opportunity to
theorize, to overcome that idea of inauthenticity as something inferior, to see what is
viewed as inauthentic as being innovative,
as actually forward-looking, to turn inauthenticity into something positive. But I see
that for a lot of ordinary people that that
particular analytical move is not available
and that it is much harder for those people.
You can see therefore why most ordinary
migrants do not conceptualise the problem
in this way. This relates to another comment
that has been made quite often to me,
namely that this identity issue is particularly
important to intellectuals. I dont know
whether youd agree with that or not, but
whether ordinary people really struggle
with it as much as we do, I dont know.
They might deal with it differently. Because
we as intellectuals understand the broader
ramifications as well as the personal, the
deep personal implications, of being
dismissed as inauthentic. For us it [identity] is not only a personal but also a politi-

cal issue. We want to think of how to

intervene in how we are identified by
others, of how to deal with identity in a
broader, cultural and political sense, in a
sense that has public and historical dimensions.
Gabriel: Absolutely. I do think the identity
issue is something that will be addressed
differently by intellectuals. The ordinary
person is going to deal with it in his or her
own way. But the interventions by intellectuals that you talk about are crucial to break
down those myths, those grand narratives
built around authenticity, and inauthenticity. Id like to come back to when you and
your family moved to the Netherlands.
Were there other Chinese families who left
Indonesia at the same time?
Ang: Yes. After the coup of 1965, which led
to a lot of anti-Chinese violence, many families tried to move out. They went to wherever they could go. The Netherlands was
one option that was open because it was the
ex-colonizer, but people also went to other
countries such as the US, Brazil, or
Singapore even Germany. Many totok
families went to China and Hong Kong.
Gabriel: Did the Chinese families who
moved to the Netherlands also begin to
identify themselves as Chinese, in the way
that your family did?
Ang: Some of them more, some of them less.
In our own extended family, many different
choices were made. So there were some
families who maintained the Indonesian
language at home. We didnt do that
because my parents pursued again in the
Netherlands a rigorous assimilation policy.
We were told we had to speak Dutch, that it
was good for our education. And they were
right in many ways. If my Dutch wasnt as
good as it was, I wouldnt have succeeded in
the Dutch education system. So there was
that. But there were also other families,
involved in business, in import and export,
for instance, who maintained connections
with Indonesia, who travelled back there for

128 Sharmani Patricia Gabriel

business, and maintained links with the
Indonesian language.
Gabriel: How did the Dutch treat you? How
were relations on an everyday level?
Ang: At high school, for example, there were
no other non-Dutch people. So I was the only
non-Dutch person. So basically you just had
to behave as if you were like everyone else. So
its not like they [the Dutch] even noticed that
you were different. I think this is an important
aspect of assimilationism the fact that the
dominant culture simply isnt able to see
difference.
Gabriel: Having to live life as a minority all
over again, you and your family had to
endure another new cycle of discrimination
and exclusion. Only this time the Chineseness ascribed to you and the difference it
signified would have been more apparent,
as you now were trying to make a home in a
majority-white nation. Were there many
other immigrant families like yours when
you arrived in the Netherlands?
Ang: No, the numbers were not visible then.
We were on our own.
Gabriel: So yours was one of the earliest
Indonesian families to migrate to the Netherlands?
Ang: Yes, one of the earliest, when we arrived
there in 1966. We lived in Middelburg, a
small town in the province of Zeeland, in the
southern part of the Netherlands.
Gabriel: What was the level of interaction
among the various groups within the Indonesian diaspora in the Netherlands? What
was the nature of the coming together or the
not coming together of these communities?
Ang: We did not come together at all, except
for some cultural festivals like the pasar
malam [night markets].
Gabriel: This is surprising. After all, the
peranakans and the totoks as well as other

Indonesian groups were now all in the same

predicament in the sense that they were a
minority community trying to build a new
life in a new country.
Ang: Well, my parents, they mostly engaged
with the extended family and friends of the
extended family; they were all peranakan
Chinese in the Netherlands. Of course there
were also other Indonesians, the so-called
Indos, half-Dutch, half-Indonesian or
Javanese. Eurasians like them, who used to
occupy a higher place in the Dutch colonial
hierarchy, have become a very large group in
Holland and they are still very influential in
the Netherlands. We are not part of that
group but I have some very good friends
among them. Actually the younger ones
connect well.
Gabriel: So, there were cleavages among the
various Indonesian groups?
Ang: Not so much cleavages in the sense of
active hostility. But we did lead separate
lives.
Gabriel: Your parents pursued an intense
policy of voluntary assimilation all over
again in the Netherlands. Was this because,
after their failure to become accepted as Indonesians, they were simply making sure they
strove doubly hard to become Dutch in order
to fit in and belong?
Ang: Yes. And we became very Dutch! At
least in a superficial way.
Gabriel: What did the process of becoming
Dutch entail?
Ang: Language again, of course. I learned
to speak Dutch and went to a Dutch school
and a Dutch university.
Gabriel: Food?
Ang: No, not Dutch food! [laughter] My
parents actually never quite understood
their own situation. They never really did,
of course, become Dutch. They did their best

Migrations of Chineseness 129

to fit in but they never integrated in a deep
and meaningful way into Dutch society. I
dont think that ever happens for first generation migrants, no matter how hard they try.
Gabriel: Did your parents have Dutch
friends?
Ang: Not many. My father had good relationships. It wasnt difficult to make
acquaintances. It was characterized by a
certain acceptance, but at a distance. But for
me, most of my friends were Dutch.
Gabriel: Was inter-marriage common then?
Ang: Yes. Very common. Especially among
the women. It was much harder for the
boys. I think its hard for Chinese men to
attract western women. They dont fit western ideals of masculinity. Though this may
be changing now.
Gabriel: Did your colonial experience under
the Dutch in Indonesia make it easier for
your family to adapt to life in the Netherlands?
Ang: It must have. The language was there.
My parents spoke Dutch, but not fluently.
My Dutch was much better because I had
picked it up in school. Becoming part of a
culture takes a lot. My parents understood
some of the basics of Dutch culture, like the
common rituals and traditions. But they did
not have a deep knowledge of Dutch
history, nor did they read Dutch literature.
That wasnt there. And over time my
mother became increasingly interested in
China. Not Indonesia, but China. Especially
after the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Gabriel: Interested in what sense?
Ang: Culturally. In Chinese cinema, for
instance. Generally in anything that
happened in China as a society. She became
deeply interested, deeply attached to China.
It became a classic Chinese diaspora thing.
For example, when there was an earthquake
in China, she would be so distressed by it,

much more than if something similar were

to happen in the Netherlands.
Gabriel: Your mothers identification with
China can be seen to mark that moment of
diasporic return to the mythic homeland.
Were you drawn to China in the same way?
Ang: No, I did not feel the same because for
me it was actually always Indonesia. If I had
to choose a diasporic attachment I would
have chosen Indonesia, not China, because I
went through that strong nationalist period
in my early years. I was born in Indonesia,
after all.
Gabriel: What did your mothers identification with China and with Chineseness mean
in everyday terms?
Ang: My mother all those years ago in Indonesia used to say, why would you want to
learn Chinese? Its of no use. But twenty,
thirty years later in the Netherlands, when
China had become more powerful globally,
she would say, maybe it was a mistake not
to have taught you Chinese. She was very
pragmatic in that respect.
Gabriel: I want to digress a little from your
personal narrative at this point to talk a little
about the role played by the state. Although
youve said that the discrimination you experienced in Indonesia was on the level of civil
relationships and with your day-to-day interaction with the Javanese, I feel it is also
important to consider the role played by the
state in the development of society, vis--vis
the formation of new identities. The peranakan community in Indonesia evolved to what
it was over the centuries in a pre-colonial
context that had allowed hybrid identities to
emerge. But the more recent migrations of the
19th century were in a period when the ethnic
Chinese had to cope with a dominant state,
in the form first of the colonial state and then
the postcolonial state. A hegemonic state
imposes fixed identities on the people; it
doesnt really sanction society coming
together naturally. The people are not
allowed to transgress the various racial or

130 Sharmani Patricia Gabriel

ethnic boundaries drawn around them. What
are your personal observations about the
dangers of the dominant state?
Ang: In the Singaporean state and the Malaysian state, which are both very dominant, the
people have to identify their racial category
on their ID card. Well, the first thing I would
do is to abolish that. The question is, why
does the state need that? I did not have a
problem with that in the Netherlands. In
western societies, you dont have that. When
you are a Dutch citizen, you are a Dutch citizen. In Indonesia, there used to be a specific
ID card specifically for Chinese in the
Suharto period, but that I think has now been
removed. That was an explicit measure of
discrimination. Australia also does not ask
what kind of race you are, so basically the
state does not make any official distinctions
at the level of citizenship. I think the states
role in describing or defining and enforcing
identities onto its citizens is to control. The
problem here is that on one hand you have to
be a Malaysian, and at the same time you also
have to be something else [Chinese or Indian,
for instance]. And you are reminded of that
all the time. Thats how the control of identity
takes place. The schizophrenic aspect of it is
encoded in the very way in which you are not
allowed ever to forget that you are of a
certain race. National states have to come to
terms with a changing world; not only with
identity issues, but with larger global issues.
So the question is, what kind of world do we
live in now? We actually live in a world of
difference, of diversity. Multiple identities
are very common experiences today for a lot
of people but the political system, not just in
particular countries but globally, is not
reflecting this.
Gabriel: What do you make of the divide
today between those who can and those
who cannot speak Chinese?
Ang: Thats very interesting. I think something has changed in the last 15 or 20 years
or so. In the beginning it was quite clear to
me that it would be mostly mainland
Chinese, but it could also be Hong Kong

Chinese, who would look at people like me

who dont speak any dialect of Chinese as
someone to be pitied, as someone who has
lost her culture. But now, I have conversations with a lot of taxi drivers in Sydney,
many of whom are from mainland China.
When I tell them that Im from Indonesia,
they will always ask, but youre Chinese
arent you? And Ill tell them, yes, I am
Chinese but from Indonesia and then theyll
say Oh, thats why you dont speak
Chinese. They have started understanding
the history of it. The media coverage of the
1998 anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia played
an important role in disseminating the background knowledge. So there is now a
greater understanding of the varieties of
histories in the region. But overall I have
found it very hard. If I have to go to a mainland Chinese or Hong Kong Chinese restaurant, even a simple thing like that becomes
very difficult, because I cant order in
Chinese. They [the waiter or waitress] will
come to me and start speaking Chinese but
I cant respond. So immediately that divide
is operative in a very practical way. That
divide I dont think is going to go away.
Gabriel: So, how do you define yourself
today? Chinese? Indonesian? Dutch?
Australian?
Ang: I carry a Dutch passport. I am a Dutch
citizen. And the reason for that is that I
cant have dual citizenship the Dutch
government doesnt allow it. Or else I
would be carrying an Australian passport
too. So we did have to renounce our Indonesianness.
Gabriel: Where is home?
Ang: Thats a really difficult question. Ive
moved around so much. I have now lived
in Sydney for almost 15 years, so it is my
de facto home. But I dont really feel
Australian, even though living in Australia has been very good for me. So sometimes I have fun confusing people by
saying that I am Chinese-IndonesianDutch-Australian.

Migrations of Chineseness 131

Gabriel: And so I end by going back to the
beginning. Have you come to terms with
your Chineseness, whatever that notional
identity means to you?
Ang: To me, I am increasingly thinking if I
should stop identifying with Chineseness.
Yes, its part of my biography, but it doesnt
play a very important role in my everyday
life today. In general, I have a deep resistance
to the determinism that is assumed by this
huge emphasis on ancestry, as if you are
forever chained to it. Of course I will always
have a connection with things Chinese, or
Indonesian, or Dutch for that matter, in the
sense that I have some cultural intimacy with
it, but that doesnt mean that these categories
exhaust who I am, what my identity is.
Gabriel: Professor Ang, thank you very
much for speaking with me.
Ang: Thank you.

References
Ang, Ien (1985) Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the
Melodramatic Imagination, London and New
York: Routledge.

Ang, Ien (1991) Desperately Seeking the Audience,

Routledge.
Ang, Ien (1994) On not speaking Chinese: postmodern ethnicity and the politics of diaspora, New
Formations 24: 118.
Ang, Ien (2001) On Not Speaking Chinese: Living
Between Asia and the West, London and New
York: Routledge.
Ang, Ien, Hawkins, Gay and Dabboussy, Lamia
(2008) The SBS Story: The Challenge of Cultural
Diversity, Sydney: University of New South
Wales Press.

Authors biography
Sharmani Patricia Gabriel teaches cultural studies
and postcolonial literature in the Department of
English, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, University
of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. She was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Leeds, UK,
where she read for a doctorate in literary and postcolonial studies, and a Fulbright Scholar at Northern
Illinois University, USA. Her research interests
revolve around issues of diaspora, race/ethnicity,
nationalism, national identity, and multiculturalism
within the politics of the nation-state. She has
published numerous articles in leading journals in
the humanities and social sciences.
Contact address: Department of English, Faculty of
Arts & Social Sciences, University of Malaya, 50603
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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