The Doyle Engaging Difference Program - Georgetown University

Last week, my friends and I gave Crazy Rich Asians a watch after putting off the movie for years. We never really understood the hype and, having read Kevin Kwan’s original, it felt very superficial. To us, Asian movies look more like blockbuster hits by Hong Kong legends Wong Kar-wai, Stephen Chow, K-dramas, and Thai movies that leave us in tears. That is the “Asian cinema” that we grew up watching. Prejudices aside, we sat down and watched the movie, six years late to the party. It was well-made, we loved Michelle Yeoh—anyone growing up in Malaysia like ourselves would know she's a household icon. We finished the movie stumped, not because of the massive panoramic shots of Singapore’s bedazzling skylines or shows of absurd, insurmountable wealth beyond our imaginations, but because of the implications of the Hokkien phrase that Michelle Yeoh’s character spoke at the famous mahjong scene: kaki lang, meaning "our people."

Are any of us truly who we are? Am I Vietnamese enough? Is my friend David Malaysian enough? Or is he Chinese? Even then, is he Chinese enough? Natasha sitting across from us, born in Australia but ethnically Chinese, how about her? In Crazy Rich Asians, our antagonist Eleanor Young despises her son’s girlfriend, Rachel Chu, a Chinese-American, for not having "Chinese values" like putting family above all, sacrificing your dreams, as well as for being a typical "self-centered’" American who only believes in her happiness. Asian parents who permit their children to do this are seen as “open-minded” and unorthodox, perhaps regarded as a reactionary counterculture against 5,000 years of filial piety and customs in Sinicised cultures. But sitting here, four college-educated and middle-class children, who are allowed to pursue their aspirations with full support of our families, got us thinking: are we reactionaries?

This culture war gripping modern East Asian societies between the “native” and “diaspora" is, for the most part, heartbreaking. Imbued since youth, we are given the sacred duty to carry on our ancient culture with its rigid hierarchies and customs by keeping our traditions alive. As noble as this mission sounds, not all have this privilege: though you gain membership into the ethnicity club, you’re not recognised as kaki lang, because you have lost touch with who you are. I spent only a few years of my early childhood in Manhattan before moving back to Southeast Asia and living with my family, shuffling between Malaysia and Vietnam. For that reason, I’m kaki lang because I live within the periphery of the core culture and have not lost my "roots."

The same cannot be said for many diaspora communities, though. Vietnamese-Americans struggle to find acceptance, and though effort is being made to recognize overseas Vietnamese talents and bring them home, most of the Vietnamese diaspora choose not to move back. Many I speak to say they fear alienation, rejection by neighbors, and being ridiculed by relatives for not speaking Vietnamese. But they burn joss paper every New Year, honor their ancestors, and eat the same food as we do in Hanoi or Saigon. Why aren’t they Vietnamese? Our family is even more reactionary: using raw, economic utility calculations, we omit most traditions and customs that we felt were draining our family resources, wellbeing, and wealth. Why do we get kaki lang status and they don’t?

This culture war, in my opinion, is self-destructing. Malaysia, where I grew up, is a nation of diasporas. All Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indians who have called the Malayan Peninsula home are not Malays, but they are Malaysian. Over 400 years, Chinese and Indian communities have developed a culture that isn’t a one-to-one mirror of the homeland, but is an incredibly rich tapestry of customs and traditions. Their practices were colored by centuries of cross-pollination and cultural infusing of hundreds of ethnicities that lived side-by-side on the Peninsula, a result of the British colonial project that brought immigrants from colonies to work on plantations. 

The modern Malaysian Chinese enjoys an Indian roti prata flatbread with curry at the local mamak (street food) stall, a Malaysian enjoys drinking Chinese kopi o black coffee, a Malaysian Indian dives into Malay snacks at the ramadan night bazaar (pasar malam) with friends, who are likely to be Malaysians and Chinese. Every Hari Merdeka (Independence Day), on August 31, all of Malaysia gathers around and celebrates the country’s founding in 1957, gawks at the sight of magnanimous military parades on Merdeka Square in central Kuala Lumpur, and sings patriotic songs like Jalur Gemilang (stripes of glory, the Malaysian flag’s anthem). There’s nothing exclusive: the Chinese still celebrate New Year with their families and burn firecrackers on Vesak Day (Buddha’s Birthday), Malays still celebrate Ramadan and Hari Raya with their families and eat giant meals after a day of fasting, and Indians still celebrate the lively Deepavali (Diwali) and Thaipusam. 

Can any of these be seen as “having lost touch” with one’s roots? They, too, are diasporas; they live thousands of miles away from their homeland, and a flight takes up to eight hours to reach home.

Malaysia has taught me invaluable lessons about seeing this homogenous society that is Vietnam, with all the culture wars of other East Asian/Sinicised societies that otherize the diaspora and see them as being “impure” compared to the homeland. This alienation deprives us from having access to the decades and centuries of rich cultural practices that our diasporas have developed living far away from home. Although Vietnam is not a multiracial, multireligious nation like Malaysia, we can take a few lessons from how those societies can accommodate cultures that did not emerge within the borders of the modern Vietnamese nation-state. We can welcome dishes made from Australian, Canadian, or American hands, or modify them to adapt spices and ingredients from home. We can teach them how to speak the mother tongue and connect with their grandparents, and show them how much the country has bloomed since they left. These are not gargantuan tasks. We happily welcome any tourist around our country with open arms. Why can’t we do the same to those who want to come home?

Perhaps, we too have our biases about what’s kaki lang and what’s not. After all, Crazy Rich Asians is to us a Hollywood fantasy about Asia, because Stephen Chow, Song Kang-ho, and Gross Domestic Happiness is what we always think of when we say Asian cinema!