JOAN
BORn
Hong Kong
year of birth
1958
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I was born in Hong Kong with a Chinese mum and a white dad. In Hong Kong, being mixed race was never an issue. When I was eight, I moved to Wales and it was horrible. I was very unhappy for many years because of racism, and this wasn’t just racism from kids in schools, it was teachers too. I became quite a wild child, I partied, I drank, all that.
The most significant thing to have happened in my life in terms of race was in 1984, I was working in South London at a Women’s Centre and there was a Chinese woman up the ladder painting the ceiling. She said to me, are you a lesbian? I said, yes I am a lesbian. She asked if I would like to join their Chinese Lesbian group, it was a consciousness raising group but also an eating group!
With this group, we went together to an Asian Lesbian conference in San Francisco, I’d never seen so many like-minded women and women that looked like me...ever! And in the same place! No matter where people were from, they would say ‘Asian American’, ‘African American’, always ‘something-American’ whereas I would say ‘Chinese’ or ‘Welsh’, I wouldn’t say ‘British’ because I suppose for me, it didn’t represent good things. They had a sense of unity in their cultural hybridity which I didn’t see here. They were second, fourth, fifth generation of Asian American and I could relate to them more than the Chinese people I had met in the UK. The Chinese Lesbian group really expanded my comfort with myself.
Race has been a big issue for me but during other periods of life, race wasn’t such an issue. I think right now, race is an issue because my mum has alzheimer. What will race mean for me when she goes? Will I feel less Chinese?
My mum’s moved into a care home and if you look around my home, there are a lot of Chinese things here. A lot of things have come from her house. She said to me, you can do anything you want with anything else but you must promise me, you’ll keep this cocktail cabinet because it was bought with my father’s first wage packet in Hong Kong.
It was quite hard getting rid of stuff from my mum’s house, there’s this emotional attachment, I think it’s because it was in Hong Kong because that’s where I felt safest.
Fundamentally, these objects represent the best time of my life. My childhood in Hong Kong was a very happy one, so yeah, these objects represent a time of safety and security which were taken away when I came here. You know, I question my attachment to objects, if I was English and there were furniture to be cleared from my mother’s house, would I feel so sentimentally attached?
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我出生在香港，有一個華人媽媽和一個白人爸爸。在香港，混血從來就不是問題。我8歲的時候搬到威爾士。但這簡直糟透了。多年以來，我都因為種族歧視而感到非常不開心。不僅僅是學校孩子歧視，老師也是。我變得沉默寡言，頻繁聚會，飲酒等等。
1984年，我生命中發生了一件有關種族的最重要的一件事。我當時在倫敦南部的女性中心工作。有個華人女性站在梯子上面粉刷天花板。她問我，你是同性戀嗎？我說，是的，我是同性戀。她問我是否願意加入華人女同性戀團體。這是一個提高意識團體，那是一個聚餐團體。
我和這個團體一道參加在舊金山舉行的亞裔女同性戀會議。我從來沒有看到這麼多志同道合的女性，和我一樣的女性。從來沒有！還是在同一地點！不管來自何方，她們都稱呼自己是“亞裔美國人”，“非裔美國人”，或者其他什麼美國人。但是我只說我是華裔，或者是威爾士人。我不說自己是英國人。因為對我來說，這并不代表什麼好東西。她們混雜的文化中，有一種統一感。在英國則沒有。她們是第二代，第四代，第五代亞裔美國人。比起我在英國遇到的華人，我覺得自己和她們更相似。這個華人女同性戀團體切實讓我與自己和解。
種族層對我來說是一個大問題。但其他時候則不是問題。但現在，因為我母親患上老年癡呆，種族成了一個問題。如果她失去記憶，種族對我來說意味著什麼？我是否會少了些華人特色？
我母親搬進一家養老院生活。環顧我家四周，你會發現很多中華特色的東西。很多東西都是她家裡的。她跟我講，其他東西你隨便怎麼處理，但是你必須向我保證，要把這個雞尾酒酒櫃留下。這是用我父親在香港的第一月工資買的。
要把我母親房子里的東西丟棄好難，因為我對這些東西都有感情了。可能因為這些東西來自香港，而我覺得香港給我最大安全感。
究其根本，這些東西代表了生命中最美好的一段時光。我在香港的童年非常快樂。是的，這些東西代表了一段很安全，安心的時光，而在這邊就沒有。我會質疑我對這些東西的情感。設想如果我是英國人，而這些是我媽媽房子里要處理的傢具，我還會不會對它們有感情?