Matthew Gibson
China Summer Fellow 2016
Shanghai, China
I refer to my self-designed major in Gallatin as “Globalization”, the academic and philosophic study of a changing world culture. I focus on questions of identity development as it relates to physical, political, and metaphorical boundaries as well as how they are changing in the face of an increasingly interconnected and transient world. Without even fully realizing it, New York University Shanghai is the ideal location to witness globalization in action.
Thanks to the Gallatin China Fellowship, I was able to extend my stay in Shanghai for the summer, and enroll in the Advanced level of Mandarin Chinese. At the end of the session, we were tasked with preparing an 8 minute presentation on any kind of social change, so I took the opportunity to consider modern Chinese diasporic networks. This was a culmination of the informal interviews I had unknowingly been conducting over the last months with my friends as I asked them about their lives, their travels, and how they view themselves in a changing society–with the added bonus that I would be recording their perspectives and my observations completely in Chinese.
In Chinese history, the thought of leaving China was discouraged and outright outlawed. From 1370 to as late as 1893, the Chinese Imperial Government denied that there was any emigration out of China of any kind. The few who left the Kingdom Under Heaven were usually traders or merchants who were often denied entry upon their return and had very low status in society. However, over time, migrants settled around the world with varying welcome from their new communities.When the Imperial Government learned of the success of these Chinese emigrants, especially those who settled in Southeast Asia, they recognized the value of having wealthy and influential citizens abroad who were still loyal to their homeland. These Chinese were renamed “华侨”, huaqiao,or the Chinese Overseas. Today, huaqiao,is less commonly used, but there is a new wave of Chinese migration to the outside world.
Over the last 50 years, the People’s Republic of China has undergone massive social, cultural, and economic change. However, the rest of the world has been slow to realize it. Speaking from personal experience, many Americans are uninformed about the current state of China and a close friend shares with me that, in Peru, to say, “I’m going to China,” is a popular facetious expression meaning you are going to “the end of the world.” Until recently, the outside world relied on popular Orientalist narratives that blurred the image of this country.
Today, more and more young people are leaving China whether to study, work, or simply travel. This new generation is a manifestation of Modern China, and is tasked, willingly or not, with becoming the representative of it’s entire culture. I recently spoke with seven close friends who represent a variety of “Chinese” experiences. In the next post, I will share highlights from my conversations with three of them about what it is like to be Chinese is a globalizing world.