Chinese Face, British Mind
How does the second generation of Chinese immigrants live in
Cardiff?
Ally is a 19 year-old girl who was born in
Cardiff. Her parents immigrated from Guangdong province in China 27 years ago and have never been back to their hometown.
Every Friday afternoon, Ally goes to a Chinese language class for learning Cantonese. This is because a year ago, she fell in love with a boy who comes from
Hong Kong and she hopes to be able to communicate with her boyfriend in his mother language. When she first went into the class, some of her classmates were quite astonished. “They thought I was the teacher because they didn’t believe I can’t speak Chinese. But in fact, I only have a Chinese face.”
Ally calls herself “BBC”, abbreviation of “British Born Chinese”. It means those overseas Chinese who were born in the United Kingdom. The majority in this group are from former British territories, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, and also other countries such as Vietnam, whereas people from mainland China and Taiwan and their descendents make up a relatively small proportion of the British Chinese.
In Cardiff, there are nearly 50 “BBC” around Ally’s age. They are the second or third generation of their families in the UK; They have British citizenship but celebrate Chinese traditional festivals together; They communicate with each other in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, even in some dialects and have their own forum on the Internet.
“We get on well, so we must be from the same kind of background.” Jenny, an active girl in “the BBC forum” said.
Jenny has a special family history. “My grandpa left Hubei (a middle province in China) because he did not want to join the Red Army,” she explained. “He went to Vietnam and then opened up a dental surgery. My mother and father had an arranged marriage and left Vietnam for the UK shortly after the Vietnam War.”
So Jenny can speak fluent Cantonese and Mandarin, basic Hubei dialect and Vietnamese. She learnt all these languages from her family and from TVB, a Channel operated by Television Broadcasts Limited in Hong Kong.
Lee, Jenny’s “BBC” friend, can also speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Generally, most “BBC” people can speak one or two languages apart from English. They learn Chinese from families or language school in Cardiff, formally or informally. The Chinese Sunday Class of Fitzalan High School and the Sunday
Chinese School run by the Cardiff Chinese Christian Church are the most widely known. Jenny and Lee have both been to some classes to improve their Chinese.
“Understanding different languages helped me to learn better and easier,” Lee stated, “I can read more and understand more than my peers.”
For their lives in Cardiff, most “BBC” pointed out there is no difference to other natives. They are all pretty much westernized so they have always been called as “banana people” who have Chinese face but British mind. And they are also eager to enter into society as a host even though sometimes they come across racism.
“I don’t think I was different to my British classmates. I was treated the same and you know, two of my closest friends are British.” Jenny said.
