Joyce Symons, the late Eurasian educator and commentator (and teacher and headmistress of DGS) in her various works talked quite a lot about the rift in Hong Kong in the 40's and 50's between the "Chinese Eurasians" and the "British Eurasians." This is no surprise as Symons' (nee Anderson) father, Charles Graham Anderson penned "No Gulf between a Chan and a Smith amongst Us," his formal organizing principle's for Eurasian unity in Interwar Hong Kong.
This historical nuance is overlooked. It is remarkable to me though, and it shows what a fixture the Eurasian community was in colonial times--you know you have truly arrived when you are big enough to have identifiable factions.
As I have had a couple days to reflect since launching my book Beyond Eurasian and Hapa: Bridging a Chinese-Western Identity, I'm stuck ruminating on East vs. West.
But not the East-West axis you're thinking about. Not the East-West or Chinese-Western that I write about.
I've been reflecting on the fact that I may have written my book from more of non-Western perspective than I realized. In other words, I wrote and continue to write from a position not aloof to "systemic racism," but certainly not fixated on "white power structures" in the West, whereby the very prerequisite to my own personal development/empowerment/sense of worth/ability to seek meaning is to upend said power structures. No.
From my vantage point in HK, I think most half-Chinese people view a rising China as the dominant narrative feature. Sure, there are "white power structures," but the world changes--and it changes fast. Any semblance of a global perspective today will acknowledge white power structures" exist but they are diffuse--they are in retreat--and where they appear fierce and unrelenting is precisely where they are weak. Of course, there are "Asian power structures too."
I believe that what's important is to be directionally right. And maybe it is right to say paying incrementally more attention to the "Asian power structures" is today more important because they are rising, as opposed to the "white power structures" because they are declining.
The financial press and the foreign policy wonks are all saying that these are troubling times, that they see shades of the 1930's in 2016. Is this like the Interwar Period as Joyce Symons describes it?
Are we "Chinese Eurasians" and "Western Eurasians?"