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On not speaking Chinese: living between Asia and the West
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2002
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Global ChinesenessCultureCultural IdentityMajor New BookCultural AnalysisChinese CultureEast Asian StudiesCultural StudiesInternational RelationsOrientalismCommunity TranslationCultural AnthropologyEast Asian LanguagesUrgent QuestionsLanguage StudiesEast Asian HistoryGlobalizationChinese Politics
Ien Ang examines identity in a globalised diaspora, beginning with her own experience of being unable to speak Chinese in Taiwan and feeling othered in the West, which sparked a decade‑long exploration of Chineseness. Ang critiques the aggressive construction of global Chineseness, challenges Western conflation of Chinese and Asian identities, and proposes a theory of togetherness in the Asia‑West in‑between space. She investigates Australia’s paradoxical Western identity in Asia, tracing its evolution from the White Australia policy to contemporary multiculturalism and its uneasy relations with Asian neighbours.
In this major new book, leading cultural thinker Ien Ang engages with urgent questions of identity in an age of globalisation and diaspora. The starting point for Ang's discussion is the experience of visiting Taiwan. Ang, a person of Chinese descent, born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands, found herself faced with an almost insurmountable difficulty - surrounded by people who expected her to speak to them in She writes: It was the beginning of an almost decade-long engagement with the predicaments of `Chineseness' in diaspora. In Taiwan I was different because I couldn't speak Chinese; in the West I was different because I looked Chinese. From this autobiographical beginning, Ang goes on to reflect upon tensions between `Asia' and `the West' at a national and global level, and to consider the disparate meanings of `Chineseness' in the contemporary world. She offers a critique of the increasingly aggressive construction of a global Chineseness, and challenges Western tendencies to equate `Chinese' with `Asian' identity. Ang then turns to `the West', exploring the paradox of Australia's identity as a `Western' country in the Asian region, and tracing Australia's uneasy relationship with its Asian neighbours, from the White Australia policy to contemporary multicultural society. Finally, Ang draws together her discussion of `Asia' and `the West' to consider the social and intellectual space of the `in-between', arguing for a theorising not of `difference' but of `togetherness' in contemporary societies.