People visit the Temple of Heaven in Beijing on August 22. -- Photo: AFP
HONG KONG (SCMP): Michelle Yeoh understood enough Cantonese when it mattered. Even though the name “Sing Lung” didn’t immediately ring a bell, she still accepted her first on-screen gig in 1980s Hong Kong – a commercial with, as it turned out, Jackie Chan – which would lead ultimately to her international film career.
Michael Wong was a Chinese-educated choirboy who went on to crack the Mandopop market in 1990s Taiwan and win acclaim as a balladeer in the wider Chinese-speaking world.
Like Yeoh and Wong before me, I grew up in Ipoh, a Chinese-dominated city in Malaysia.
For my generation, a wide exposure to Chinese culture and a decades-long emphasis on Chinese-medium education are paying off in a bigger way than I could have imagined, with the transformation of mainland China into an economic and technological power.
Around Ipoh, ethnic Chinese children have often grown up between languages. At home, my parents spoke Cantonese, and we lapped up TVB dramas and Cantopop songs from Hong Kong.
A class at Damansara Chinese National School in Kuala Lumpur in 2001. -- Photo: AP
But when I went to school, I learned to read and write simplified Chinese – not the traditional script that is used in Hong Kong – and all subjects at the primary-school level were taught in Mandarin.
At the public secondary school I attended, the medium of instruction switched to Malay, the national language, but Chinese and English were compulsory subjects.
That is how I came to have a perfect command of Mandarin, and to consider it more of a mother tongue than Cantonese.
It’s also natural that many of my schoolmates would be tuned in to the latest Mandopop hits from Taiwan, by singers like Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai.
At the time, Taiwanese idol dramas and variety shows were common entertainment options, in the absence of strong alternatives from mainland China.
Many Malaysian Chinese had been drawn to Taiwan for the longest time, whether as a tourist, student or expat destination, due to a unique combination of “pull” and “push” factors.
On the one hand, Taiwan offers scholarships to overseas Chinese students; on the other hand, Malaysia continues to give the Malay majority preferential access to resources from higher education to housing under the bumiputra or “sons of the soil” policy, in the name of tackling inequality.
I was often told by the older generation that this is the price our community had to pay for being allowed to develop the most comprehensive education track in Chinese outside China – more than 1,200 Chinese vernacular primary schools, and around 150 government or independent Chinese high schools – instead of assimilating.
But despite the focus on Chinese-medium education, mainland China wasn’t on the radar of my generation of students, outside of history books. It wasn’t on the news much. Early in the 2000s, I had to hear from a handful of relatives and friends who had visited about what an exciting place it was and how it was constantly improving.
A view of Beijing’s central business district from the Drum Tower on September 25. --Photo: EPA-EFE via SCMP
This shiny new China only became highly visible during the Beijing 2008 Olympics, shortly before I graduated from secondary school. Amid intense international media coverage of China’s modernisation drive in the run-up to the sporting event, the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube stadiums were soon the coolest buildings in the region.
The country also grew in my peers’ estimation when it achieved its best Olympic results ever, taking more gold medals than the United States.
While China now had our attention, we weren’t completely sold on it until the 2010s, when it not only became the world’s second largest economy but also started producing regionally successful television programmes.
More of my friends and relatives started travelling to the country for business, pleasure or to visit their ancestral homes. I, too, jumped on this bandwagon in 2016, hoping to explore a hitherto unfamiliar part of my heritage; it had also been my childhood dream to go on an adventure discovering the ancient Silk Road for myself.
My first stop in China was Beijing. To see the Chinese capital’s modern prosperity up close was to believe it.
From Beijing, I then travelled all the way west to the China-Pakistan border. Traversing the country, I noticed how Han Chinese culture varied by region; I also saw a wealth of ethnic minority cultures, not to mention sprawling landscapes along the Great Wall and the Gobi Desert. The sights were mesmerising, and it was an intellectually rewarding journey.
Culture-wise, I must admit that a northern Chinese city like Beijing felt a little strange to someone with southern Chinese roots. The rolled-tongue Beijing pronunciation of Mandarin took getting used to, as did the northern Chinese preference for noodles and buns, over rice.
I still remember how surprised a food vendor was, when I asked in Mandarin for a fork and a spoon to eat with. In China, all meals can be attacked with chopsticks, whereas Malaysian Chinese like me are accustomed to eating rice off plates, with forks and spoons, and using chopsticks to pick up noodles.
Differences aside, it was a fruitful experience observing the vastness and diversity of mainland China, and an eye-opener after years of connecting to Chinese culture mostly through Taiwan.
While I proudly carry a Malaysian passport, my knowledge of Chinese has proved to be a vital, invisible passport to China, whether to delve into Chinese civilisation, soak up contemporary Chinese culture or seize new opportunities.
More broadly, I wouldn’t be able to do this without the benefit of the education I received in a multilingual society like Malaysia. For that, I’m grateful to be a Malaysian Chinese.
Chee Yik-wai is a Malaysia-based intercultural specialist and the co-founder of Crowdsukan focusing on sport diplomacy for peace and development. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
