The best way out of China

I have been thinking a little more about the immigration routes of the Chinese people, an issue somewhat personally relevant to me since I am a 3rd generation immigrant Chinese. I never thought more about the fact that my great grandmother decided to go to Southeast Asia to join her family. On hindsight, there was a chance that I might have ended up being born in China or in the US. And depending on that decision, we could have suffered more (I don't think we could have suffered less).

So we took the Southeast Asia route, and life was hard, and we were second class to the British, but everyone did okay. Some Chinese people even got rich and set up schools and made lasting donations. (There is a building named after Tan Kah Kee in Berkeley.) Then there was the turbulence of the 1950's and 60's when the British left Southeast Asia. The Chinese were not well regarded by the people of Malaya, and there were racial riots. The Chinese people in Malaysia continue to be held back by racial quotas (affirmative action for the majority, who happen to be economically challenged), and the Chinese people in Indonesia have to worry during the hard times too because they were targeted. The Chinese people in Singapore are doing well, and I have to thank my dad for deciding to move to Singapore while the rest of the family stayed in Malaysia.

Now that I am reading a little more about Asian Americans, I am grateful that my ancestors never took that route. If they had gone to California to build the railway, they probably would have died alone with no possibility of wife, much less child (= no me). With the Chinese exclusion act, they would have contributed to building a nation while never receiving recognition if not for World War II. Finally they took brides. But even today, Asians are viewed with a jaundiced eye.

I have never been to China. I don't feel like I want to go there, despite all that news of economic boom and miracle. My sister tells me that it's all in my head. When I finally step onto Chinese soil, it won't be a proletariat tragedy from the movies. She's probably right.