Passed Down from Generation to Generation
In 1977, when I was still in high school, I was intrigued by “Roots”, an eight-episode mini-series on American television about the bloody history of a black slave family. The series was adapted from the classic book of the same name by a famous American black writer, Alex Harry, which caused a national sensation in the US when it was released. The book was the best-selling book in the United States in 1976, and the series perfectly reflected the novel’s scenario and content, through spatial changes, as well as spanning a century of time gap, faithfully presented a black family of six generations, by the slave traders from Africa across the ocean to the Americas for a time to sell the tortuous and humiliating experience.
Through the history of a slave family, the series reflects the suffering of 25 million black people in the United States and analyses the barbaric and brutal system of slavery in a small way. With only eight episodes, Roots had more than just a casual drama, and was revived by ABC to critical acclaim. 1978’s Roots, with all its blood and tears, won an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
Kunta Kent, a free-living black man in a Gambian village in West Africa, is captured by slave traders at the age of 17 and sent to the United States as a slave. He ran away many times to fight for his freedom, but finally gave up his dream of escaping for the sake of his family. His daughter Cath, grandson George, and great-grandson Tom all paid a heavy price for their freedom, which was finally achieved when the United States won the Civil War and slavery was abolished. In this way, they have established their own roots in the United States from one generation to the next.
At that time, I already wondered where my “roots” were when I was born and grew up in Hong Kong.
It was only after I had lived in Australia for a long time that I realised that my “roots” had been moved to Australia without my realising it, and I reflected deeply on the idea of immigrants integrating into Australia.
Stick to the Good and the Beautiful
Living in Hong Kong, I went to a Chinese school in my primary school, but my secondary school was a prestigious English-medium school. What infected me was the experience of generations of Chinese people in building up a life of beauty and goodness in their lives. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods are regarded as a glorious era in the development of Chinese culture. Various schools of thought competed with each other to become the dominant theories of social development, forming the core of Chinese culture for more than 2,000 years. They were not necessarily in opposition to each other, but complementary to each other.
However, since the Han Dynasty, when Confucianism became the ethical framework of the society, and the rulers chose Legalism to establish a system and means of social control for the ruling class, the Chinese culture could not move forward, and it only remained in culture and art, which were still developed, but it did not move forward in exploring the meaning of human life. The pursuit of beauty and goodness in Chinese culture was confined under the authority of the rulers, similar to the situation in China today.
As Hong Kong was under British rule at that time, education also gave that generation of Hong Kong people the opportunity to come into contact with the civilisation of the whole world and to learn about the diversified development of human cultures. Looking back at the formation of my own values, I am thankful that we were not brainwashed by a totalitarian government like our friends who grew up in China. It can be said that those of us who grew up in Hong Kong were deeply influenced by liberalism and longed for democracy, the rule of law and equality, which were not present in Hong Kong then or today. However, when I came to settle in Australia, I realised that the values that the Australian society values are exactly the ideals that I pursued when I was a child.
I believe that this is exactly what any immigrant who comes to settle in Australia, who is born in Australia, has to think about and recognise, and has to stick to it from one generation to the next.
Yearning for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law
The Australian tradition yearns for freedom, because Australia was originally a society pioneered by a group of exiles who had lost their liberty and by adventurers who valued their personal freedom. The popular song Waltzing Matilda, more popular than the national anthem, describes the story of a wandering labourer who caught a sheep in the bush and ate it while the sheep’s owner brought three policemen to arrest him. According to the law at that time, those who committed the offence of theft would be sentenced to death by hanging, and the vagabond ran away. In the end, when he had nowhere else to run, he jumped into the lake and shouted “You’ll never catch me alive” to the arresting officers as he ended his life. This is a story of a man who yearns for a life of freedom and liberty, with a little bit of humility and a spirit of indomitability, much loved by Australians.
The desire for freedom and respect for each other has led to the establishment of a democratic political system in Australia. Yes, in order to build political consensus among a group of people who yearn for individual freedom, it is necessary to let everyone have the same political rights, and let everyone have the opportunity to participate in politics. Therefore, politics in Australia is regarded as inefficient and often controversial, and the government rarely intervenes, seeking social consensus before implementing anything. In the recent “Aboriginal Voice” referendum, after decades of discussion, no consensus has been reached and the referendum could not be implemented, which is very disappointing. However, this is an expression of the importance of democracy in Australian society.
The song “Waltzing Matilda” does not strongly condemn the owner of the sheep, but only expresses the wanderer’s desire to live a free life, and pay the price of his own “evil deeds”, but with the pride of a free life. Many people believe that this song expresses the importance of human rights and the rule of law in Australia.
Yes, Australia is a country without a long history, but it is a society that was built on the influence of European Christian culture and the pursuit of freedom by the bundled masses. As such, it is a society that is far removed from China’s thousands of years of patriarchal rule. The good thing is that my roots are in Hong Kong, where there has always been a high degree of freedom.
Integration and Adaptation of Chinese
Chinese from Hong Kong, I believe, are the easiest group of people to adapt to life in Australia today. Hong Kong is a highly developed city, similar to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane today. For those who yearn for the countryside, it is not difficult to see that modernisation in Australia is not only limited to the big cities, but the countryside is also highly modernised, with a British culture similar to that of Hong Kong 97 years ago, which was a highly international society. The reason why there is still no large-scale settlement of Hong Kong people in Australia after 2020 is because Hong Kong people have always thought that Hong Kong is closer to China than Australia, and they have no intention of transplanting their roots.
However, Hong Kong today is no longer the same as it was a hundred or two hundred years ago. 1969, Richard Hughes, an Australian journalist living in Hong Kong at the time, wrote a book entitled “Borrowed Place, Borrowed Time: Hong Kong and Its Many Faces”, which says that Hong Kong is only a short-term existence. In recent years, more and more people believe that Hong Kong has become the past of their life and start to leave for the rest of the world, and I believe that more and more Hong Kong people will settle in Australia in the future. I believe that many Hong Kong people will have to face the problem of how to integrate into this society and adapt to it in the future.
Chinese immigrants from Southeast Asia, who have experienced the status of foreigners for many generations in their place of origin, can easily accept the social values of Australia when they come to Australia. As they are accustomed to the modern life in Australia, most of them do not have the possibility to go back to their place of origin and integrate into the society as a matter of course. I believe this is also the reason why very few Chinese Australians from Southeast Asia would actively go back to their place of origin or China to trace their roots.
Immigrants from Mainland China are the most conflicted group of people. Most of them were born in the new China, received a manipulative education, and became a group of people who control the interests in China, so it is very difficult for them to accept the Australian values. In Australia, the equality of all people means that they do not deserve more opportunities than others, are they really willing to accept this? After coming to Australia, many people still hope to rely on the special relationship with China to have more opportunities to work and live in Australia, so it is not easy for them to identify with Australia. It is not easy to integrate into Australian society under these circumstances.
However, the biggest impact of these immigrants is the conflict of ideas and values between them and their next generation, who have grown up here.
Due to these factors, we can see that the first generation of Chinese immigrants are not easy to integrate into the Australian mainstream society, and there are some reasons for this.
Lack of response from the mainstream society
Another problem faced by the Australian society is that the Australian society is changing so rapidly that the management cannot keep up with it. Imagine it was only 30 years ago when Australia was a British-dominated society. Today, a group of 40- to 50-year-olds in the management society still live in an environment where they have no chance to learn about other cultures and have no contact with foreign immigrants when they were young. It is extremely difficult for these leaders to understand the difficulties and process of immigrant life and adaptation, therefore, the government and society seldom provide in-depth support to immigrants.
It is only when the governing class and the majority of the community realise that the Australia of today is fundamentally different from the one they grew up in, and are willing to address these challenges through the social system, that we will be able to bring about changes in the community that will make it easier for today’s immigrants to integrate, rather than to be ignored everywhere they go.
Of course, we cannot expect politicians or community leaders to take the initiative in identifying these problems, but the longer the immigrants have been here, the more proactive they should be in raising their voices to the community, and in trying to make it clear to more people that Australian society has not been able to keep up with the changes in ethnic diversity.
I have chosen this topic for this year’s column in the hope that I can share more thoughts with readers.
Mr. Raymond Chow