The Transformation of My Identity: Hwarian, Malaysian, Cosmopolitan (to be continued)

English Hegemony and Western "Superiority" (to be continued)

Rethinking Chinese Malaysian (to be continued)

Hwarian (Chinese Transnational Cultural Community): Coinage of a New Term (to be continued)

Lim Lian Geok 林连玉/林連玉：The Father of Mother Tongue Education in Malaysia

I finished the first draft at 21st March 2014. Many thanks to a very kind mentor of mine for editing this article. In this article, I coined a term "Hwarian" to introduce the concept of 华人/華人 in Mandarin into English. I do not know if my own attempt will be successful yet I think that it is necessary since there is no a single English word can appropriately signifies the concept. 

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If you have gone to other countries and meet other Hwarians [1], such as Chinese Indonesian or Chinese American, you would find that most of them cannot speak Mandarin and literally know nothing about Chinese culture. It makes Malaysian Chinese, who systematically preserves Chinese culture, significantly special in this whole world. To learn more about the reason, you would have to know a great figure, Lim Lian Geok.

Lim Lian Geok was born in Hokkien, China in 1901. He went through his childhood, received education, became a teacher and built his family there; and he arrived in Malaya only when he was 27 years old whence everyone would assume a person like him should have strong attachment to China beyond any other country.  But, during 1950s, when Malayans were striving for independence, Lim Lian Geok urged all Hwarian in Malaya to pledge their allegiance to the new nation, which was particularly uncommon during that period when most Hua people still regarded China as their homeland.

It is no doubt that Lim Lian Geok was a patriotic man who served his country well. When Japanese occupied Malaya, Lim Lian Geok was a member of an ambulance crew, shedding tears and blood for the country. When the Alliance were negotiating with British colonial government for independence, he asked all Hwarians to support the Alliance. He said that Hwarians had to forget their origin country since their children would live in this land with other races as friends forever and ever. He even said that all Hwarians should lend a hand to other races since their socio-economic condition was less satisfactory then.

However, he stated that there are premises for adhering patriotism. Since every ethnicities had made a great contribution to the country, all of them should be regarded as owners of the land and thus be treated equally. [2] Among all of the rights, Lim Lian Geok regarded cultural right as of utmost importance since culture is the soul of every ethnicity, deserving the most respect. To preserve their own culture, the mother tongue education is the only means. Thus, he suggested that Malay, Mandarin and Tamil should be regarded as the official language of the country; and, accordingly, all of the mother tongue schools should be included in mainstream education.

  

To those who argue that different languages would harm the country’s unity, Lim Lian Geok stated that the fundamental basis of national unity is common interest instead of culture. He once questioned why is it that U.S and U.K. are two different countries in spite of their common language? Why is it that different ethnic groups in Switzerland are still being able to constitute a nation despite speaking different languages? It is no doubt that every nation needs a common language and it can only be Malay language in this country. But, does it mean that other languages need to be excluded?

His stance was totally against that of the government. In 1960, the Rahman Talib Report was announced on which the 1961 Education Act was based, stating that “the ultimate objective of education policy in this country must be to bring together the children of all races under a national education system in which the national language is the main medium of instruction, though we recognise that progress towards this goal cannot be rushed and must be gradual.” In addition, under the 1961 Education Act, all financial aids in the mother tongue secondary schools [3] were terminated. They were faced with only two options: 1) to convert themselves into English medium national-type secondary schools, which would be converted into Malay schools after 7 years; and, 2) to be forced to become independent schools without any financial aid.

Under such circumstances, Lim Lian Geok urged all Chinese-Malayans to choose the latter path even if it meant that all of the independent schools can only rely on donations from Chinese community for their survival since then. Though the government had exerted much pressure on him, he had never surrendered and continuously opposed against the government. Eventually, he was deprived of his citizenship based on the reason that he was racism and unpatriotic! Since his teaching license had also been taken away, he could only rely on his friends’ help for survival. Despite all these forms of hardship and deprivation, he still chose to live in this country as a way of showing his persistence against the government’s atrocities.

Lim Lian Geok’s sacrifice should not only be considered as protecting Chinese culture. On the contrary, he was protecting the mother tongue education movement which is an important reason that the Tamil Foundation regards him as “the father of mother tongue education in Malaysia”. Further, it should not be confined within the scope of mother tongue education; it is actually a struggle for equality of all Malaysians.

I believe that Malaysia has come to a new era, in which a brand-new “Malaysian” identity based on equality has been forming in many Malaysians’ minds. Thus, I should say that it is also an appropriate time for all Malaysians to learn about Lim Lian Geok who had inspired a lot of people and had personally done everything he could towards the betterment of everyone in this country.

P/S: 

I guess some of you might think that the main problem of Chinese independent school for national unity is that students can’t speak Malay fluently. Let me share my experience. My main problem then is that of attitude. Since I have been told that we are second-citizens in this country from my childhood, I was unwilling to learn the language. Thus, the main barrier for us is historical segregation instead of Malay-speaking environment. It comes out that it might be my biggest mistake in my life. I would learn Malay very hard from now. Otherwise, I could not communicate with most Malay friends.

[1] * Hua Ren is the translation of 华人/華人 in Mandarin, which means an ethnicity whose ancestors were from China, such as Chinese Malaysians. This term is to differentiate such group from the too widely-used “Chinese”, which generally indicates someone who holds China’s citizenship.

[2] Just a quick example. Yap Ah Loy, also known as Yap Tet Loy and Yap Mao Lan. He is regarded as the founding father of modern Kuala Lumpur, he developed Kuala Lumpur as a commercial and mining centre during the mid-19th century.

[3] I prefer this term to vernacular schools as the latter seems a bit derogatory.

Western Name Order: An Unconscious Reproduction of Western Cultural Hegemony

The following is a statement for petition I wrote at 2nd, November, which I have already sent to one of the representatives of UoE Student's Union. If I cannot see any substantial progress on this matter, I will release this petition and mobilize stakeholders to endorse it. Yet, I think that it is important for me to post it here for personal record. 

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We undersigned, as students of University of Edinburgh (UoE) and global citizens, in the principle of eliminating discrimination against all cultural communities, including nationals and ethnicities, and with the sincere hope that UoE can become the pioneer of upholding the foregoing principle in Western universities, strongly appeal our university to amend the categorization of name in every administrative documents of our university, i.e. from “first name” and “surname” to “first name” and” “last name”.

In some cultures, including those of Western countries, given name is placed first and followed by family name. Thus, most people in Western countries presume that it is also the same among other cultural communities. In arguably most of the administrative documents in Western countries, be it that of immigration, matriculation, or bank registration, the format has already been standardized as “first name” and “surname”. Due to the strong cultural influence of them over the world, this kind of name order seems to become a norm in the world.

However, the order of names is the exact opposite in other cultural communities, including Hungary, parts of Romania, South India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, China, and different ethnicities, which are originated from these places, all over the world. Despite its unintended consequence due to ignorance on cultural differences, the categorization of name in every administrative documents of Western countries is in fact discrimination against these cultural communities in the sense that they must be forced to put their given name in either the column of first name or surname; none of them are true and therefore against their usual habit which might bear cultural meaning for them.

We are fully aware that many members from these cultural communities might not even care the cultural meaning contained in their own name order and even change their name order in accordance with Western’s in daily life; that is their freedom of choice. However, it is completely different when such name order is standardized in every administrative documents, which can be construed as institutionalization of a certain order and therefore an indiscriminate imposition over other communities without considering their cultural identity.

In the strong belief that University of Edinburgh, being a top-class university in the world, is making every effort to eradicate all kind of discriminations, we strongly urge UoE taking the initiative to amend “surname” to “last name” in every administrative documents. We believe that it is the right way to accommodate cultural differences in the era of globalization. And we even hope that UoE will set a role model leading other universities and eventually all administrative units in Western countries to follow suit.

Signatories:

1. HO Can-Hao

A Review of Will Kymlicka's Multiculturalism (to be continued)

Will Kymlicka is one of the most prominent political theorist in multiculturalism, whose works I have just gone through during the last semester. The starting point of his theory of multiculturalism is minority rights, which he defends from liberalism viewpoint. Since his theory is based on the context of western liberal democracy countries especially Canada, I think his theory is not applicable to Malaysia. Yet, some analytical perspectives of his theory might shed some light on Malaysia's ethnic problems.

We need to start with the concept of liberalism. The core of liberalism is individualism and its principles are freedom and equality. This statement has two implications: 1) the unit for moral judgement is and can only be individual; 2) the criterion for moral judgement is that if a certain action (behaviour, policy etc.) is beneficial or detrimental to freedom and equality of an individual. Though different theorist has different interpretations about freedom and equality, such rough understanding should serve our purpose to understand Kymlicka's theory.

Kymlicka argues that the concept of group right does not only compatible with individual freedom; it actually promotes it.

Hello, nice to meet you ! Time for Self-Introduction ~

Hello, My name is HO Can-Hao (何灿浩/ 何燦浩) and you can just call me "Hao" (pronounced as "how"). Maybe quite different from yours, "Ho" is my surname and also my forename; "Can Hao" is my last name and given name. Here's my picture:

When you see my name in Chinese character, you may think that I am from China, Taiwan or Hong Kong. It might be a bit surprising for you that I am actually a Malaysian; a "Chinese-Malaysian", though. I know this term might be a bit confusing as it sounds like dual nationality. In fact, for most people like me, "Chinese" represents our ethnicity and cultural identity while "Malaysian" indicates our nationality and national belonging. To preserve our culture, it is common that most of us are Chinese native-speaker. As one of minorities in Malaysia, however, we also need to learn Malay and English to communicate with other ethnic groups, such as Malay, Indian, Kadazan, Iban and the like.

It is exactly such complicated background which stimulates me to think and write in the first place. In many countries, it is taken for granted that every citizens should share a same culture and language and every minorities need to be integrated into the majority. To say the least, a rather high degree of homogeneity within a nation is justifiable or even worth pursuing. However, there is definitely a conflict between homogenization from the state and minority cultural right. As a Malaysian minority, such tension always prompt me to think about different issues such as nationalism (nation-building, nation-state), citizenship, minority right, culture and language, cosmopolitanism and multilingualism, transnational cultural/religious community, clash of civilization and etc.

Though my first language is not English, I choose to write in the language. By doing so, I hope that I can discuss the abovementioned issues with people from all over the world. Though I am fully aware that my English is far from enough to articulate my view accurately in the current stage, I hope that I can have good command of this language and become a multilingual writer in the future.

NB:

No matter who you are, you are more than welcome to express your views or/and modify my language. I especially hope that I can exchange opinions with other minorities from other countries as I believe that they are also facing similar predicament as us.