Teochew nang, gaginang: Boundary-making and -crossing of the
Teochew in Saigon, Vietnam.
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Li Li Vuong University of Amsterdam
10000587 Contemporary Asian Studies
Thesis supervisor: Dr. Shanshan Lan Date: 31-07-2017 Co-readers: Dr. Leo Douw and dr. Tina Harris
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Table of contents
1 Introduction ... 4
1.1 Multiple meanings of being Chinese ... 6
1.2 Boundary-making and-crossing practices ... 8
1.3 Identity construction ... 9
1.4 Research question ... 11
2 Setting and Methodology ... 14
2.1 Setting ... 14
2.2 Research population ... 17
2.3 Position in the field ... 21
2.4 Operationalization and methods ... 23
2.5 Ethical considerations ... 24
3 “I would rather die than living in Hanoi”: The impact of Vietnam’s state policies on the Chinese community ... 25
3.1 From sojourner to citizen, the position of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam’s state ... 25
3.2 Transformation of Cho Lon into a multiracial place ... 29
3.3 Four generations of Teochew-Vietnamese ... 31
4 “Teochew speak Teochew”: Language choices and identity construction ... 35
4.1 Challenges in the maintenance of Teochew language ... 36
4.1.1 Influences on the maintenance of the ethnic language ... 37
4.1.2 The Cantonese language maintenance ... 38
4.1.3 The attitude towards speaking the heritage language per generation ... 40
4.1.4 Exceptional case ... 41
4.2 Multiple layers of the identity through languages ... 42
4.2.1 Pan-Chinese identity... 42
4.2.2 People of the Tang Dynasty ... 44
4.2.3 Teochew-Vietnamese identity ... 48
4.2.4 The cosmopolitan identity ... 50
4.2.5 Ethnic chameleons ... 51
5 “I will never work for the Vietnamese”: Shifting and ambiguous interethnic relationships in the business and occupational sector ... 53
5.1 The meaning of self-employment versus employment ... 54
5.1.1 Self-employment as the marker of PTD-identity ... 54
5.1.2 Employment, the choice of the disadvantaged ... 56
5.1.3 Reasons to pursue education and employment ... 58
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5.2.1 Stereotypes in business ... 61
5.2.2 Interpersonal relationships ... 63
5.4 A family business case ... 64
6 “I’m going to the pagoda, wanna join?”: The reflection of interethnic relations in cultural and leisure practices ... 67
6.1 Cross-overs in rituals and cultural practices... 68
6.2 The social nature of religion and cultural adaptation ... 70
6.3 Stereotypes and interethnic relations ... 71
6.3.1 The Cantonese stereotype ... 71
6.3.2 The Vietnamese stereotype ... 73
6.3.3 Accommodation within the Saigonese society ... 75
6.4 Cultural continuity or breakdown? ... 77
7 “We love our daughter-in-law”: Intermarriage and the family unit ... 81
7.1 Intermarriage and the deinstitutionalization of marriage ... 82
7.2 Standards of choosing a spouse and stereotyping ... 84
7.2.1 Negative attitude towards marriage with the Vietnamese ... 85
7.2.2 Marrying Vietnamese, not that bad? ... 89
7.3 Gendered roles within intermarriage ... 91
7.3.1 The woman’s role in intermarriage ... 92
7.3.2 The man’s role in intermarriage ... 96
7.4 A multi-ethnic family case ... 99
8 Conclusion ... 102 8.1 Summary... 102 8.2 Discussion ... 104 References ... 108 Appendix ... 115 Overview of participants ... 115 Teochew-Vietnamese participants ... 115 Non-Teochew participants ... 124
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1 Introduction
Ethnic communities are separated from each other by boundaries, which frame the ethnic identity of such communities. The words boundary, community and ethnic identity are therefore related to each other. Ethnic boundaries are crucial for understanding ethnic identity (Barth, 1998). A person’s ethnic identity is partly defined by the boundaries between them and ethnic others. Boundaries are manifested and reinforced by various boundary making and crossing practices. Since boundaries are constructed in relation to others, ethnic identity, communities and even culture are constructions in relation to the outbound groups. It is important to know that the boundaries are not fixed and it depends on the context and what the individuals view as significant differences between two communities. One’s identity comprises of multiple layers of selfhood (Kondo, 2009). The imposed identity and multiple layers of selfhood are subject to a person’s social positioning within multiple contexts. To research boundary making and crossing practices, it is interesting to look at communities within culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse environments. One of such communities is the Teochew in Vietnam, which is a subgroup within the ethnic Chinese.
A commonly used idiom by the Teochew is: Teochew Nang, Gaginang. This means: Teochew people are our own people. This idiom is frequently used between the Teochew, to indicate ethnic cohesion. This cohesion is to such an extent, that social and financial resources may be exchanged with the gaginang, which would not be exchanged with another. This makes it interesting to examine the strength of this idiom in real life. Therefore, I focus on how the Teochew-Vietnamese negotiate their boundaries with the neighbouring ethnic groups in Ho Chi Minh city (HCMC). In the remainder of this thesis, I will use Saigon to refer to HCMC, because the Saigonese use this name to refer to the city.
During fieldwork in Vietnam, I noted that the Teochew-Vietnamese use different names depending on their interlocutor’s ethnicity. One day, I was having an appointment with Linh, she asked me to meet her at the store she is working at. When I did not see her upon entrance, I asked her colleagues where she was, pronouncing her name as how she has introduced herself to me, her Teochew name. Her colleagues, who were all Vietnamese, did not recognize this name. After making a phone-call, she appears out of the warehouse. Her colleagues approached her with a different name, an abbreviation of her Teochew name in
5 Vietnamese and her official name according to her birth certificate. She later explained to me that the Vietnamese do not know her by her Teochew name, only the Teochew know her by that name. This really shows me how identity can be performed. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the heterogeneous society of Saigon by looking at two interrelated processes of boundary-making and -crossing. One is within the Chinese community, between the Teochew and the Cantonese. The second is the relation between the Teochew and the Vietnamese community.
There has been relatively little research done on the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. Most research done on diasporic Chinese is based in Singapore, Taiwan, Australia and the US. Many ethnic Chinese have moved to Southeast Asian countries in the 19th and 20th century, most
research on these Chinese is done in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. In the past century, Saigon was subject to multiple rulers, with different policies and treatments against the Chinese. It was the capital of the French colony of Cochin China, it was under military dictatorship and now it falls under a communist regime. Under the French rule, the political environment was favourable towards the ethnic Chinese, while under the other rulers, the ethnic Chinese became marginalized (Cooke & Li, 2004; Corfield, 2013). Now, the policies are directed towards full assimilation of the ethnic Chinese (Tran, 1993). It is interesting to see how these policies are translated into the relations between the Teochew-Vietnamese and the Vietnamese. I found that the Teochew-Vietnamese are heavily influenced by the
Vietnamese, because they live side by side with each other. Nevertheless, they were able to maintain their ethnic identity. This shows how the construction of the identity is an open-ended process.
The ethnic Chinese is a heterogeneous group. Chineseness has been contested in several researches. There is no absolute nor universal idea of Chineseness and there are multiple forms and layers within the Chinese identity (Ang, 2001; Mathews, 1997). The Teochew-Vietnamese, therefore, need to be treated separately from the other ethnic
Chinese. Most of the ethnic Chinese live in Cho Lon, the largest Chinatown in Vietnam, which is situated in Saigon. Within the Chinese community, I choose to focus on the relation
between the Teochew-Vietnamese and the Cantonese-Vietnamese, because these are the two largest ethnic Chinese groups (Tran, 1993). The other ethnic Chinese communities, the Hakka, Hokkien and Fukien are relatively small-sized. Because of the length of this research, I
6 decided not to include them in this thesis. Furthermore, it is notable that the lingua franca among the ethnic Chinese is Cantonese. The adaptation of the Teochew-Vietnamese towards the Cantonese-Vietnamese shows the complexity of the process of the Teochew-Vietnamese identity construction.
This introductory chapter contains the theoretical background that explains the multiple dimensions of boundary-making and -crossing practices and it sets out the research question. In the first section, I show that there are multiple meanings attached to being Chinese. The Teochew-Vietnamese are ethnic Chinese and are part of the Chinese diaspora. Being Teochew is part of their identity. It segregates them from the Cantonese-Vietnamese and the Vietnamese. The segregation goes through cultural and social boundaries between communities. How boundary-making practices may segregate and boundary-crossing practices may congregate the three groups is explained in the second section. Furthermore, the boundary-making and -crossing practices reflect one’s selfhood and identity. These practices are a strategic way of how people deal with their imposed identity and are subject to a collective sense of belonging through a plethora of commonalities which are made significant depending on the context. In different contexts, they can either blend with or counter the other. The last section explores the complexity in identity construction through boundary-making and -crossing practices.
1.1 Multiple meanings of being Chinese
Gordon Mathews (Mathews, 1997) argues that the Hong Kong identity could be seen as a ‘Chinese plus’ identity. To some it is Chineseness plus cosmopolitanism, to others it is Chineseness plus English or Chineseness plus human rights. Lok Siu (Siu, 2007) gives an interpretation of the identity of the Panamanian Chinese. The Panamanian Chinese collectively identify as Chinese, but their Chineseness is influenced by ideological debates about being Chinese between the mainland Chinese government and the Taiwanese government. Taiwan claims that its Chinese ideology is ‘more’ authentic than China’s. The Panamanian Chinese deal strategically with their identity by the accumulation of different forms of cultural capital from, and the formation of transnational networks with, Panama, Taiwan, China and the US. The difference between my research and that of Mathews and Siu
7 is that the Chinese community in Vietnam is divided within subgroups. The
Teochew-Vietnamese need to negotiate their position with Vietnam, China as the nation-state, but also with the neighbouring Chinese ethnic group, the Cantonese-Vietnamese. Mathews and Siu, however, treat the Chinese in Hong Kong or in Panama as one community.
There is thus not an essence in Chineseness. Ien Ang (2001) also contests the idea of an absolute and universal idea of Chineseness. Not only the Chinese in China lay claim of being Chinese but also the diasporic Chinese, but in different ways. Based on her life, she describes the complexity of her belonging to the Chinese community, despite her lack of speaking Chinese, her being born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands. Her story shows how diasporas create imagined communities whose boundaries are sustained by both real and symbolic ties to China and a negotiation with the host country. Her situation is similar to the environment in Vietnam; the Dutch colony made place for the Indonesian rulers and the French colony made place for the Vietnamese rulers. Such as the Vietnamese, the
Indonesians pressured the Chinese to assimilate and schools exposed children to nationalism. Ang (2001), as a child, developed a desire to assimilate and to let go of her Chineseness through continuous marginalization as the alien minority.
However, the overseas Chinese feel a deep emotional connection to the homeland. This self-identification of the overseas Chinese, under which the Teochew in Vietnam, is complex and full of contradictions. Diasporas are transnational, according to Ang (2001), there is a tension between the host country and the homeland. They have a position of ‘in-betweenness’, which is a liminal space and need to be given form in a creative way, leading to hybrid cultural forms. Within that space, not only the homeland defines a person’s identity, but also the host society gives meaning to this identity. My goal, exactly, is to examine this liminal space for the Teochew in Vietnam. Chineseness, therefore, needs to be seen as an open signifier of the Teochew, and the boundaries between the Teochew and the other groups construct the ‘new’ Teochew-Vietnamese identity. The Teochew-Vietnamese reinvent their identity vis-à-vis the Vietnamese, China and the other Chinese groups in Vietnam. The difference between Ang and the Teochew-Vietnamese is that the Teochew-Vietnamese ties to their Chineseness do not seem to come from oppression, but from pride.
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1.2 Boundary-making and-crossing practices
It is clear that ethnic identity does not have an essence. Fredrik Barth (1998) explains that it is constructed by boundary-making. People define the identity of the self in opposition of the identity of the other. Boundaries are made on perceived cultural differences. Within an ethnic community, social relations and networks are kept and reinforced by the upholding of a strong ethnic identity and the structural principal of kinship (Barth, 1998). Boundaries frame the ethnic community and these are visible there where two ethnic groups segregate or interact. Besides ethnic segregation, this means that ethnic cohesion within a community form the diasporic identity (G. C. Cheung, 2004).
Scholars have investigated processes of boundary-making. Lan (2012) shows that the Hong Kong immigrants in the US differentiate themselves from mainlanders by stressing the class status. They construct a distinctive Hong Kong identity to resist their categorization as Chinese imposed by the mainstream white society. The mainland Chinese identity is
associated with being uncultured and backwards, while the Hong Kong identity links to
cosmopolitanism (Lan, 2012). In comparison, Zhao (2010) found that the Cantonese resented the Fukien-Chinese in the US, because they caused restaurant competition and tarnished the local image of the Chinese by staying undocumented. The Fukien reacted by separating themselves from the Cantonese (Zhao, 2010).
These examples show that boundaries are formed based on fundamental differences, such as norms and values, and social class. These perceived fundamental differences cause stereotyping and stigmatization, which may lead to tensions and conflicts between ethnic communities. Barth’s (1998) point is that an ethnic group defines its own identity by defining the other. However, it cannot be predicted which differences would be more relevant in creating boundaries to what extend these boundaries create conflicts. Boundaries are continuously constructed, deconstructed and crossed and the practices differ per context. I aim to search for the significant differences that construct boundaries between the Teochew-Vietnamese, the Vietnamese and Cantonese-Vietnamese. However, in Saigon it seems that the ethnic Chinese community do not segregate themselves in order to resist being
categorized as one community. In fact, they pose a united identity towards the Vietnamese as one community, this is shown in Chapter 4. Fundamental differences, however, do sometimes lead to interpersonal conflicts. For example, in the situation of mixed marriages as described
9 in Chapter 7. In addition, I also explore boundary-crossing practices within different contexts, such as linguistic adaptation, interethnic business relations, ethnically mixed work and school environments, acculturation within religion and rituals, interethnic friendships and
intermarriage. It contributes to the relative sparse literature on boundary-crossing practices.
1.3 Identity construction
The critical focus of investigation here are the social boundaries, not the cultural content. Some scholars have written about identity construction and performance through boundary-making and -crossing practices. With their knowledge, this section provides an understanding of how ethnic boundaries construct ethnic identity. Based on her experience, Dorinne Kondo (2009) argued that the meaning attached to one’s identity and selfhood comprises of the negotiated understanding of the self and the imposed identity by others.
Identity is not a fixed ‘thing’, it is negotiated, open, shifting, ambiguous, the result of culturally available meanings and the open-ended, power-laden enactments of those meanings in everyday situations. (Kondo, 2009, p.24)
One’s identity comprises of multiple layers of selfhood; it is the performance of different aspects of identity for smooth relations. The identity that comes to the surface depends on the other and on multiple contexts (Kondo, 2009). The Teochew-Vietnamese are subject to the dynamics of interaction and power relations to others: other Teochew-Vietnamese, the Vietnamese and the Cantonese-Vietnamese. In Kondo’s (2009) case, she crossed a boundary by deconstructing her Japanese-American selfhood and constructing a Japanese selfhood to fit in with the Japanese society. The Teochew may also construct their social surface this way and ‘blend’ with their interlocutor’s social surface depending on the context. This is mostly notable in Chapter 4, in Saigon, the Teochew-Vietnamese seem to cross boundaries by for example speaking Cantonese.
In a different research, performed by Takeyuki Tsuda (2000) about the Brazilian born Japanese in Japan, the construction of boundaries takes place through counter-hegemony resistance. The Brazilian-Japanese express themselves by constructing an identity in
10 culture of this group. They do this through practices by displaying overt signs and signals of Brazilian culture, such as wearing Brazilian clothing, speaking Portuguese out loud,
exaggerating Brazilian behaviour and introducing themselves as Brazilians when meeting Japanese for the first time. The Teochew-Vietnamese may also perform counter-hegemony resistance and emphasize their Teochew selfhood against the mainstream Vietnamese society. This will be mostly noticeable in chapter 5. They resist assimilation through choices they make in their occupation, for example by refusing to work in Vietnamese companies.
Tsuda (2000), furthermore, suggests that migrant groups that are ethnically related to the host society are confronted by more cultural pressure. In Japan, the Japanese Brazilians are under more pressure than other foreigners to adjust to the host culture, because their Japanese ethic identity and appearance creates the expectation that they behave ‘Japanese’. It is interesting to compare the pressures placed by the Vietnamese and the Cantonese-Vietnamese communities on the Teochew-Cantonese-Vietnamese to assimilate with their respective identities. The Cantonese-Vietnamese do not seem to pressure the Teochew-Vietnamese to behave more ‘Chinese’, in fact, the Teochew-Vietnamese consider themselves ‘more
Chinese’. This is shown in Chapter 6.
Boundaries are not only formed between the Teochew and the civil society in
Vietnam. The state’s policies also play a role in boundary-making. The state has its strategical ways to pressure the Teochew to assimilate, which the Teochew-Vietnamese need to deal with. Vietnam was ruled by the French colony. Research has been done on the importance of Chinese communities in Cochin China, which consisted of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Tracy Barrett (Barrett, 2012) found that the French colonial authority’s policies caused competition and conflicts between subethnic Chinese groups which generated both ferocious rivalries and devoted partnerships between the Chinese communities. However, Vietnam is not being controlled by the French colonizer anymore. State control in South Vietnam shifted to the Republic of Vietnam (ROV) in 1955, and to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) in 1975. I am extending Barrett’s study by incorporating the boundary making practices of the ROV and the SRV in post-French colonial Vietnam.
At last, boundaries are not only instruments to conform to or to converge from the interlocutor. Boundaries also frame ethnic identity. Gerd Baumann did an ethnographic study in Southall, London (Baumann, 1996). Southall is an ethnically diverse neighbourhood, where
11 different communities need to negotiate their position in everyday life. Baumann introduced dual discursive competence. This means that there a discrepancy between how people talk about cultural differences and boundaries and what they do in real life. First, is the dominant discourse. This discourse essentializes culture, community and ethnic identity and leads to ‘self-other’ talk. The identity of the self is formatted in opposition to the perceived identity of the other through ‘self-other’ talk (Keenoy et al., 2009). The self-other talk initiates the formation of stereotypes, and essentializes differences between cultures. The second discursive practice, Baumann calls the demotic discourse. This shows that identity is flexible and complex. Life ranges across a multitude of communities and the belonging to one
community depends on the context. Communities are built on a variety of variables and there are multiple perceived heritages that predicate a community. One community may cross multiple communities. The Southallian youth, for example, constructed a new ‘Asian’ community, where people of different religions or castes are placed together under new brackets (Baumann, 1996). Baumann (1996) found that residents in Southall often move back and forth between the dominant discourse and the demotic discourse. The dual discursive competence shows that the construction of identity is a complex, ongoing process of making and remaking a collective sense of belonging throughout different contexts, rather than a construction that is essentialized and functions to label isolated groups (Baumann, 1996). For this reason, it is important to ‘listen’ to the Teochew-Vietnamese about both boundary building and demolition, instead of only focusing on differences in ethnic cultural content.
1.4 Research question
The Teochew-Vietnamese seem to adapt to the other groups by using Vietnamese names or speaking the Cantonese language. Despite the close relationship with the other groups, I also note a trend that the Teochew-Vietnamese are rediscovering their ethnic heritage. Joshua, for example, a 24-years-old Teochew-Vietnamese, states: “We have a lot of Teochew [in
Vietnam]. They really want to contribute to our roots.” At the same time, he says: “My family is almost losing their [Teochew] roots; my parents can't speak Teochew. Only I really want to keep the roots, because I'm proud of being Teochew.” Note the paradox in his story. On the one hand, the Teochew seem to ‘lose’ their cultural heritage. On the other hand, the
12 In this thesis, I try to unpack this paradox by examining some of the tensions and complexities in the development of Teochew cultural identity through the angle of boundary-making and -crossing practices. Because identity construction depends on a multitude of variables, it is crucial to deconstruct the paradox into multiple spheres. These are the spheres of linguistic adaptation, interethnic business relations, ethnically mixed work and school environments, acculturation within religion and rituals, interethnic friendships and
intermarriage. Furthermore, I move beyond methodological nationalism by exploring how the Teochew-Vietnamese construct their ethnic identity in relation to China’s Chaoshan region and Taiwan. And I explore how the Teochew-Vietnamese understand themselves in the nature of their lives in Vietnam, but also in the nature of their belonging to China or Chaoshan, their native land. This research attempts to answer the following research question:
How do the Teochew-Vietnamese negotiate ethnic and cultural boundaries with the Vietnamese and the Cantonese-Vietnamese in Saigon?
The main research question is divided into the following sub-questions:
1) What are the impacts of changing Vietnamese state policies on the Chinese community in Saigon?
2) How do Teochew-Vietnamese construct their ethnic identity through strategic linguistic practices?
3) How are boundaries crossed over in daily social activities, in the sphere of education, work and business?
4) How are boundary-making practices reflected on religious practices? 5) How are boundary-crossing practices manifested in intermarriages?
The remainder of the thesis is focused on answering these questions. In Chapter 2, I show the setting of the fieldwork, and the methodology used to answer the research questions.
Chapter 3 gives a detailed historical background of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, and shows how the political changes in Vietnam results into different cohorts within the
Teochew-13 Vietnamese community. Chapter 4 shows how multiple layers of the identity is constructed through language practices. Chapter 5 displays how boundaries are crossed over throughout the life of the Teochew-Vietnamese in the sphere of education, work and business. Chapter 6 answers how religion is a social activity where boundaries are crossed. Chapter 7 elaborates how crossovers are manifested within intermarriage. And at last, chapter 8 gives the
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2 Setting and Methodology
This chapter starts frames the setting and methodology. I start with the setting of the fieldwork. Then, I frame the research population. Next, I explain my position as a researcher vis-à-vis my research subjects. At last, I discuss my research methodology.
2.1 Setting
To learn how the Teochew-Vietnamese understand themselves in relation to the Vietnamese and the Cantonese-Vietnamese, I was settled in Cho Lon for a period of three months from January to march 2017. This is an area in Saigon known as the Chinatown. It extends over district 5 and 6 and parts of district 8 and 11. It used to be a Chinese fortified settlement, established by the Fukien and Cantonese in the 18th century (Cooke & Li, 2004). The
Cantonese is the largest ethnic Chinese group in South Vietnam, while the Teochew being the second largest (Tran, 1993). The table below shows the make-up of ethnic Chinese groups in South Vietnam.
Table 1: Distribution of the Chinese in South Vietnam, by ethnic subgroup
Ethnic Chinese subgroup 1924 1950 1974 1989 Cantonese 35% 45% 60% 56.5% Teochew 22% 30% 20% 34.0% Hakka 7% 10% 6% 2.5% Fukien 24% 8% 7% 6.0% Hainanese 7% 4% 7% 2.0% Others 5% 3% - -
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Figure 1: Map of the Inner districts of HCMC
Derived from (Leseman, 2013)
In the latest population count per ethnic group in 2009, there were 823.071 ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, accounting for 0,96% of the Vietnamese population (Nguyen, 2010). Of which 50,3% live in Saigon, making 5,78% of the Saigonese population ethnic Chinese. At most 39,17% of Cho Lon’s inhabitants are ethnic Chinese, assuming that all ethnic Chinese live in Cho Lon. Despite the relatively small number of ethnic Chinese, they control about half of the economic activities in the city and dominate most markets (Corfield, 2013).
In Cho Lon, the Teochew-Vietnamese, Cantonese-Vietnamese and Vietnamese live side by side. The Teochew originate from Chaoshan, the Vietnamese ancestry originate from the Kinh, who originate from present-day Northern Vietnam and Southern China, and the Cantonese-Vietnamese originate from Cantonese speaking regions in Guangdong. Both the Teochew and Cantonese originate from Guangdong, China. They carry out boundary crossing practices such as intermarriage, trading and the lingua franca among the ethnic Chinese is Cantonese. The relatively powerful position of the Chinese in Saigon and the ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse environment of Saigon make Saigon an interesting place to investigate the boundary-making and -crossing practices. The Chinese-Vietnamese refer to themselves as People of the Tang Dynasty (PTD).
16 PTD is a popular term used among overseas Chinese, for example in Japan, Malaysia, and the US (Chen, 2005; Chun, 2001; Tan, 2005). In Chinese, there are multiple terms that can be used to indicate a person’s Chinese heritage, such as people of the Han Dynasty or
zhongguoren (the latter is made popular during the Qing Dynasty and usually indicates the Chinese connected to China’s state), overseas Chinese may also be called huaren (people with Chinese cultural heritage) or huaqiao (Chinese nationals living overseas) or huayi (Chinese descendant living overseas with an foreign nationality) (D. Y. Wu, 1991). The choice of which term to use has political connotations. The Chinese in Southeast Asia particularly dislike using zhongguoren, because of its nationalistic and patriotic associations (Chun, 2001). Tang and Han Dynasties were the most powerful dynasties in China’s history. The usage of either of these terms refers to people who are ethnically Chinese, without reference to China’s state. Both terms can be interchangeably used. However, the term PTD remains more popular among the Southern Chinese (D. Y. Wu, 1991). Since most Chinese-Vietnamese originate from Southern Chinese regions and do not feel a connection with China’s state, PTD is used. Once in a while, I encounter people who use huayi. In Vietnamese, they and the Vietnamese call the Chinese-Vietnamese người Hoa, which is a literal translation of huaren. The languages spoken by người Hoa is called Hoa language, which indicates Chinese language. The remainder of this thesis uses either PTD or người Hoa to refer to the ethnic Chinese
To compare the boundary negotiation of the Teochew-Vietnamese in Saigon, I also spend three days in Bac Lieu. Bac Lieu is also known as one of the Teochew towns along the Mekong Delta. Bac Lieu is inhabited by the Vietnamese, the Teochew-Vietnamese and Khmer Krom. The presence of the Teochew is great there. One of the Vietnamese folklore songs goes as: “Bac Lieu is the land, under the river, the shore of Chaozhou”. Meaning that the Teochew sojourners settled there in such great numbers, that Bac Lieu may be considered part of Chaozhou, the native land of the Teochew. Comparing Bac Lieu with Saigon gives me the opportunity to extract findings which are specifically related to Saigon’s unique environment.
According to official numbers in 2009, only 2,34% of Bac Lieu is ethnic Chinese (Nguyen, 2010). According to the inhabitants, however, 30% of the citizens are Teochew-Vietnamese. This disparity of official numbers and the experience of the inhabitants may be because of ethnically mixed families. Furthermore, administrations sometimes make mistakes in categorizing the people. Some ethnic Teochew-Vietnamese, with parents who are
17 registered as Chinese, are registered as ethically Vietnamese in their birth certificates, which means that the numbers on the ethnic Chinese population in Vietnam may be heavily
underestimated. As a consequence, I cannot fully rely on official data.
2.2 Research population
The population examined during fieldwork consists mainly of people, born and living in Vietnam, with ethnic Teochew ancestry, who are not immigrants from other Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia. Vietnam’s state has freed Cambodia from the Pol Pot regime in 1978. During the Pol Pot regime, many Teochew-Cambodians migrated to Vietnam. These are excluded from my research population, because their trajectory is different than that of the Teochew-Vietnamese, whose family directly migrated from Chaozhou to Vietnam. Other groups that are included in this research are the ethnic Vietnamese and the ethnic Cantonese residing in Saigon. When referring to the ‘Vietnamese’, I mean the Kinh-Vietnamese. Vietnam knows 53 ethnic minorities. The largest ethnic minority in Southern Vietnam is the Khmer Krom. The Hoa are second largest (Nguyen, 2010). the Khmer Krom, are excluded in this study. They mainly live in the countryside along the Mekong Delta, in places such as Bac Lieu. Only 24.000 live in Saigon, making them the second largest ethnic minority in Saigon, but still small as compared to the Hoa, who have 414.015 people (Nguyen, 2010). In total, I have spoken to 113 people.
I have used snowball sampling to gain access to the field through several access points. Snowball sampling is the usage of the network of the people who are relevant to the research question (Bryman, 2012). The greatest gateway for collecting respondents is through Facebook. Facebook is widely used in Saigon. I have placed multiple messages on Facebook communities and like-pages targeted to ethnic Teochew living in Saigon (Cộng đồng người triều châu - việt nam.2017; Người triều châu - sài gòn, 2017; Người triều châu - teochew - 潮 州人.2017; 潮人在越 ( người triều châu ở vn ), 2017; 潮州義安會館交流會, hội giao lưu triều châu, 2017; Gaginang, 2017; 義安會館 - nghĩa an hội quán, 2017).
Furthermore, I attended the Teochew culture and language class to gain access to more participants. Nghia An huiguan became my primary point to connect to people. A huiguan is an ethnic Chinese voluntary association that is organized along the lines of the
18 surname clan, district, region and dialects. Ethnic Chinese temples are usually connected to a huiguan. Huang, one of the volunteers at Nghia An huiguan, stated: “If you come to Saigon, and you are searching for a Teochew person and you come to us, you are guaranteed to find that person. We have the largest network of Teochew people.” In total, I gained access to seven gatekeepers through Facebook and two through Nghia An huiguan, I used these
gatekeepers to gain data through a combination of snowball sampling, stratified sampling and theoretical sampling.
Stratified purposive sampling is the gathering of participants in a strategic way to answer the research question, criteria are determined beforehand (Bryman, 2012). By this, I mean that I purposely search for candidates that are diverse in age, fitting within four age categories that I established. Generation one, born before 1950, generation two, born between 1951 and 1965, generation three, born between 1966 and 1985, and generation four, born after 1986. These four generations have experienced different state policies in Vietnam, because of this they have experienced different attitudes of the host country towards the ethnic Chinese. These attitudes and actions have led to generational differences in the attitude of the Teochew-Vietnamese regarding the Vietnamese. The attitudes play a significant role in the development of their self-identity. I go in-depth about the political circumstances in chapter 3. To draw a clearer picture, all six generation one confidants speak Teochew, One out of thirteen generation two does not speak Teochew, this one however is an anomaly, because he grew up as an orphan. Three out of thirteen generation three and 23 out of 31 generation four does not speak Teochew. Their ability and fluency in speaking the ethnic language, explained in chapter 4 is a product of state policies. Therefore, the
generations play a significant role in this research.
Moreover, I used theoretical sampling. Theoretical sampling is a form of
non-probability sampling, which is an ongoing process where additional samples are made based on the theory that emerges from the data (Bryman, 2012). The sample is adjusted towards questions that rise out of the gathered data. For example, when participants claim that it is difficult to learn Teochew language, because they spend relatively little time with parents, I would aim to search for participants with a) the same characteristics, b) different ages, and c) children that adhere to similar characteristics.
19 The number of Vietnamese confidants is large, because I have spoken to 29 of 39 during the street interviews, in which I did not go in-depth about their personal life, I have only asked them about their knowledge of the Teochew-Vietnamese. To create an
understanding of intermarriage, I have spoken to eleven interethnic couples. Most of them are in a relationship with Vietnamese. Intermarriage with Vietnamese occurs due to the spatial convergence of the ethnic Chinese and the Vietnamese. More information will be given in chapter 7. Furthermore, to have an overview of the daily lives of the confidants, I have focused on their occupation. Note that 34% of the Teochew-Vietnamese own a business, and out of the people who are retired, the majority used to own a business. 22% of the
confidants have a daytime job, but only 33% work for Vietnamese, and 59% work for a foreign company. It must be added that the Teochew-Vietnamese who have (had) a job are generally generation three and four Vietnamese. This information shows that the Teochew-Vietnamese tend to separate themselves from the Teochew-Vietnamese by owning a business or working for a foreign company. I go in depth about this in chapter 5. For a detailed overview of the participants, see appendix.
20 59% 8% 33% Teochew-Vietnamese: Work Foreign company Teochew company Vietnamese company 17% 83% Teochew-Vietnamese: Retired Used to work Used to own a business 20% 2% 22% 34% 11% 9% 2% Teochew-Vietnamese: Occupation Students pre-school Work Business Retired No occupation Other 52% 48% Teochew-Vietnamese: gender Female Male 92% 8% Teochew-Vietnamese: Place
Saigon Bac Lieu
10% 20% 20% 50% Teochew-Vietnamese: Generations Generation 1 Generation 2 Generation 3 Generation 4 92% 8% Teochew-Vietnamese: Parents Teochew
One non-Teochew parent
39% 12% 5% 44% Teochew-Vietnamese: Relationship status Single
Dating/ married to Vietnamese Dating/ married to Cantonese Dating/ married to Teochew
Chart 1. Overview of participants
57% 34% 8% 1% Ethnic identity Teochew-Vietnamese Vietnamese Cantonese-Vietnamese Cantonese & Vietnamese
21
2.3 Position in the field
During fieldwork, I have noticed that the Saigonese, especially the Teochew-Vietnamese, seem discrete and introvert. It is difficult to gain the amount of trust to establish fruitful interviews. Because of this, my position as a researcher is crucial in gaining access to the field. At IzyEnglish community, I was planning to give a presentation about being Viet Kieu
(overseas Vietnamese) and hand out a survey to the audience to measure their familiarity with the Teochew-Vietnamese community. Unfortunately, IzyEnglish disapproved the survey. They could not accept surveys asking about personal experiences, because it was “too
sensitive”. Therefore, I learned to establish more personal and intimate relations with the participants. Moreover, the confidants dislike the interview setting. It makes them
uncomfortable and bored, after which they change subjects, get distracted or plainly ignore me. They prefer an informal setting, where the main activity is social in nature. I have decided to adhere to their preference, and focus primarily on participant observations and
conversations. Spending relatively more time with individuals or groups helps me to gain trust and become part of the mundane everyday lives of the participants to gain a genuine view on the boundary-making and -crossing practices.
The field is relatively close to me, because I am of mixed Teochew, Vietnamese and Cambodian heritage. I am able to speak or understand the languages that the participants use: Teochew, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese and English. This makes it easier for me to gain access. Furthermore, the variety of languages functions as a tool to discretely have conversations. My participants feel the security to make less reserved, because others in the same space are probably not able to understand us and they do not want to come across as racist. This makes the conversations relatively more honest.
More importantly, I was able to pose multiple layers of identity towards my research subjects. As I am ethnically mixed, my appearance is both ambiguous in age and ethnicity. I am able to pose as Vietnamese, Teochew, Cantonese or foreigner, or any combination of those. While, I am using an overt approach as a researcher, I selectively specify my background. When people seem to highly respect foreigners, I pose my foreign identity. When I sense that I can make use of ethnic cohesion, I would adapt to my interlocutor’s ethnic identity. When I want to appear authoritative, I pose as an elder. To those who
22 Furthermore, the foreign identity helps me to act uninformed, creating an incentive for
participants to comprehensively clarify questions.
As a fellow-Teochew, I am included in the Teochew community. Joshua explained: “At first, I did not want to meet you, I don’t have time. But because you are gaginang, I felt the obligation to help you.” Also, my family members are respected in the Nghia An huiguan, making the people connected to this association willing to direct me towards others and trust me. Yat stated: “How do you know Trien? He is rich, I have seen him on YouTube. You are acting so casual. These rich Teochew never allow interviews, instead he is inviting you.”
Despite my close relation to the field, I am able to look at the field from a distance and objectively. As I am raised in the Netherlands, I can point at extraordinary behaviour using my practices in the Netherlands as a contrast. This gives me the possibility to gain information out of otherwise perceived as mundane conversations, attitudes and practices. This way, I can strategically take advantage of my layered identity.
During a hiking trip up a mountain with a group of Vietnamese, I have encountered cultural differences. The group’s inertia due to differences in physical condition bothered me and hiking on their pace seems to me as a waste of time and resources. Half way up, I decided to go ahead by myself. Two hours after I reached the top, one of the people yelled my name, Hiro. He asked me to return to the group, but I refused. He watched me with amazement: “Li Li, we are here with the group. You are supposed to stay with the group. You can’t do like this.” Hiro climbed the rock and started to lay down next to me, looked at me with a stern face and says: “You are my responsibility. I can’t leave you.” I felt offended by this statement, but decided to ignore it.
Once down, I noticed that the people did not care to talk to me anymore. I watched their behaviour, and no one approached me nor included me in conversations. In the hotel, one girl came to me and asked: “Li Li, do you like us?” I answered that I really do like them, which I really did. “Well, some people think you don’t like us.”, she answered. At one point, Hiro tells me. “You’re an Asian girl, but also a European girl. […] Sometimes, you behave exactly like an Asian. You know how we think, do. But sometimes, you are so foreign. Just like a European.”
I learned about the strength of the cohesion within groups in Saigon out of this experience. They would stay together no matter what. Group culture is strong in the
23 Saigonese society. People rarely go out by themselves or one on one. Most of their outings are in the form of a group, and often it is the same group. In contrast, in the Netherlands, I was used to going out in groups. But once we are at our destination, the group would easily separate and interact with others. In the Saigonese society, this would be highly exceptional. When I go to cafeteria’s or other places in Saigon, I find it very difficult to mingle with the people there. It is clear that the groups are closed, and mingling is not expected. The cohesion within groups may make friendships seem stronger, but many people, especially people who have not grown up or studied here, have great difficulty making friends. This lesson, I apply to the social circle of the Teochew-Vietnamese.
This anecdote reflects my position as a researcher in Saigon and how I am able to look at the field at a distance. Since, I am of Teochew-Vietnamese heritage, I have learned about some of the cultural practices and norms during my lifetime. At some extend, I am close enough to the field to understand how to behave and what the Saigonese expect from me. However, I am raised in the Netherlands and am used to the lifestyle in Amsterdam. In my position, I am able to use the way I look, the language and anticipation of the expected
behaviour to gain trust from the people in the field. People easily invite me into their lives and behave naturally around me. They perceive me as one of their own.
2.4 Operationalization and methods
Central to the research project is the question how the Teochew-Vietnamese negotiate boundaries with the Vietnamese and the Cantonese-Vietnamese in Saigon. These communities are divided by ethnicity. Negotiating boundaries between the Teochew-Vietnamese and the two other ethnic groups involves boundary-making and -crossing practices. During fieldwork, I take a look at these practices through the sphere of politics, language, education, business, occupation, religion, and intermarriage. The practices are explored through participant observation and conversations, life history interviews,
unstructured interviews, street interviews and one group-interview. A detailed overview is placed in appendix A. I examine how the Teochew-Vietnamese are pressured to either blend with or resist the other groups and in what context they blur or solidify the social boundaries. And I examine how they construct their identity through boundary-making and -crossing practices. Note that I will not focus on cultural content, but on the practices around the
24 boundaries instead. Through these methods, I contest a universal notion of Chineseness by exploring how the Teochew-Vietnamese develop their ethnic identity in the context of post-French colonial Vietnam and transnational connections to Chaoshan, and China.
2.5 Ethical considerations
Alan Bryman (Bryman, 2012) uses the four ethical principles of Diener and Grandall. I apply them to my research methods. First, since freedom of press and speech is strongly restricted in Vietnam, to protect the safety of my participants, I made sure that I did not ask any political sensitive questions in public using Vietnamese language. Second, I introduced myself to all participants as a researcher. However, because of the nature of my research, the participants may lose track of my research intension. Whenever I perceive information as possibly
sensitive, I always ask my participants for consent. Third, the generally overt method I am using gives participants the opportunity to refuse invasion of their privacy. Moreover, I decided to use pseudonyms referring to each participant. The generated data is saved in files on an external hard-drive.
25
3 “I would rather die than living in Hanoi”: The impact of
Vietnam’s state policies on the Chinese community
To research the positionality of the Teochew-Vietnamese in Saigon, we must understand the historical context of how Vietnam has influenced the lives of the Chinese population. The relationship between the Vietnamese community and the Chinese community has been marked by economic rivalry and geographical disputes. In the first section, I cover the trajectory of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. The next section explores the transformation of Chinatown, Cho Lon, into a multiracial place after the reunification of Vietnam. Then, I show how the marginalization experienced after the American war influences the attitude of the Teochew-Vietnamese against the Vietnamese. Based on political circumstances, I make a division in cohorts of the Teochew-Vietnamese confidants. This division is set up in the last section.
3.1 From sojourner to citizen, the position of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam’s state
This section shows the history of the ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. The attitude towards the Chinese reflected in Vietnam’s state policies were fluctuating under different regimes. The shared history among the ethnic Chinese and the marginalization of the ethnic Chinese by Vietnam’s state influence community cohesiveness. It is likely that the Cantonese-Vietnamese and the Teochew-Vietnamese feel a strong bond with each other, because of the shared history.
This chapter attempts to follow the Teochew trajectory in Vietnam and how this results in the construction of the ethnic identity. The presence of the Teochew in Vietnam, along the Mekong Delta, has been known since the 18th century through the junk (a type of
ancient Chinese sailing ship) trade (Cooke & Li, 2004). Cho Lon is the Chinatown in Saigon. The origins of Cho Lon come from the Tay Son Rebellion, a peasant uprising in Vietnam from 1769 until 1802 (Corfield, 2013). Vietnam was ruled by the Lê dynasty, but most of the Chinese population were supporters of the Nguyen lords, who were the effective rulers of South Vietnam. The forces of Tay Son attacked the Chinese and many of them sought refuge in Cho
26 Lon during the mid-1770s. The peasants disliked the Chinese because of their wealth and influence and attacked and killed the Chinese. The Chinese thus fortified this settlement and it became known as Tai Ngon (‘Embankment’ in Cantonese) (Cooke & Li, 2004).
With the establishment of the Nguyen Dynasty, 1803 – 1866, the Chinese economy in Cho Lon flourished (Corfield, 2013). The Nguyen court encouraged the immigration by the Chinese (Tran, 1993). They had a strategic interest in collaborating with China, which may be useful to fend off Western powers. Almost all commercial transactions were conducted in Cho Lon (Cooke & Li, 2004). During the second half of the 19th century Chinese migration into
Vietnam increased (Tran, 1993). In China there were political upheavals, causing its people seeking for better conditions overseas. After the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, Western powers occupied Hong Kong and treaty ports were opened. The Chinese authority had no control of the movement of their people in and out of China. With the treaty of Peking in 1860, Britain and France literally compelled the Manchu authorities to recognize the right of Chinese workers to seek a livelihood abroad.
In 1867, France colonized six provinces of southern Vietnam, which formed Cochin China, and established protectorates in central and northern Vietnam in 1884. The French colonization resulted in the policy of the colonial government to recruit Chinese labour for Vietnam (Tran, 1993). They allowed the Chinese to deal freely and gave other legal rights, including the right to own land, to travel without restriction, and to establish commercial organization. In 1872, the Cho Lon had about 80,000 inhabitants, after Saigon it was the largest city in Vietnam (Corfield, 2013). The influx of Chinese migrants continued. Data estimates that about 1.2 million Chinese arrived in Vietnam between 1923 and 1951 (Tran, 1993). This high number correlates with the security situation in China. In the periods 1924-1927 and 1946-1949 China was experiencing civil wars and in 1936-1938 Japanese military started to invade China. By 27 April 1931 Cho Lon and Saigon merged into one city called Saigon-Cho Lon (Corfield, 2013). In 1952 Saigon-Cho Lon’s population consisted for about 34% of Chinese (Tran, 1993). 45% of the ethnic Chinese were Cantonese, and 30% were Teochew. The ethnic Teochew came to live in Vietnam as sojourners. Chaozhou at the time was impoverished. Families had to say goodbye to their husbands and sons, who went to Vietnam to make a fortune. They always had the intention to return to China. However most of them remained (S. Wu, 2012).
27 After Vietnam gained independence from France in 1955, ‘Cho Lon’ was dropped from the city’s official name. Descriptions of Cho Lon, by the British writer Norman Lewis, who visited it in 1950, state that Cho Lon is a purely Chinese city, which for some reason is supposed to be more typically Chinese than the great seaports of China (Corfield, 2013). Before 1975, 80% of the residents in Cho Lon were Chinese (Tran, 1993). 60% were
Cantonese and 20% were Teochew. According to the memories of my confidants, 99% of the shop owners in Cho Lon’s market were ethnic Chinese. They spoke Cantonese or Teochew and they rarely interacted with the Vietnamese. It seems that they lived in a Chinese bubble in Cho Lon. The Chinese were spatially segregated from the Vietnamese and Cho Lon was a self-providing space, the institutions were strictly Chinese.
In 1954, Vietnam was divided into the non-communist Republic of Vietnam (ROV) in the south, and the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in the North. The French colonial administration practised the ‘divide and rule’ policy, which gave a separate legal status for the Chinese community. However, after the French left, President Ngo Dinh Diem of the ROV government, declared, in 1956 in decree 48, that all ethnic Chinese born in Vietnam to become Vietnamese citizens, irrespective of their own wishes. With Decree 52, all Vietnamese citizens had to adopt Vietnamese names within six months or pay a heavy fine, and decree 53 prohibited all foreigners from engaging in eleven different trades, all of which are dominated by the Chinese. Within 6 months to 1 year, the non-Vietnamese citizens were required to liquidate their businesses and transfer their ownership to Vietnamese citizens. In 1963, a new nationality law passed where foreign-born Chinese were allowed to opt for Vietnamese citizenship. However, ethnic Chinese citizens of the ROV were required to be identified as Vietnamese of Chinese origin in official papers and documents.
In the north, the DRV were less favourable towards the Chinese. Around 1967, the relationship between the DRV and China deteriorated because of some differences regarding Cambodia (Szalonta, 2009). The DVR required the Chinese to take Vietnamese citizenship, however the majority was determined to keep their Chinese nationality. The DRV attempted to seize their passports, but the Chinese refused to hand them in. Discriminatory measures were then applied. The authorities ceased to hire Chinese translators or Chinese people who work with frequent contact with foreigner, such as hotels and customs. Moreover, the
28 Chinese were rarely hired by the army, and even if they are in the army, they are mainly involved in logistics and not in the first-line combat troops.
During the American war, confidants remember that the Chinese supported ROV and the American army, because they were against the communist regime. After the war, the DRV conquered Saigon. In 1976, Vietnam was reunited under the name of Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and Saigon was renamed as Ho Chi Minh City (Tran, 1993). By this time, the Chinese population made up of 2.6% of the total Vietnamese population. After the fall of Saigon, the fortunes of the Chinese in Saigon changed rapidly. Because the ethnic Chinese community intermarriage between the Chinese and Vietnamese was common a significant number of officials have Chinese ancestry (Corfield, 2013; Tran, 1993). The Chinese,
therefore, have a disproportionately large economic and political influence in Vietnam. The SRV made moves to break the economic and political powers of the Chinese in the form of property confiscation and physical expulsion (Corfield, 2013). Unaware of the deteriorating Sino-Vietnamese relations, the Chinese staged demonstrations in HCMC in March 1978 in protest against discrimination and persecution (Chang, 1982). At one demonstration, the Chinese requested the return of their Chinese citizenship and carried portraits of Mao Zedong. The Vietnamese authorities crushed these demonstrations with force.
The SRV reacted by a complete clamp-down on all bourgeois activities in the country (Chang, 1982). Thousands of northern cadres were transferred to the south. On March 23, a special force made up of 30,000 policemen, cadres and students were mobilized and
dispatched to rope in the entire Cho Lon section of HCMC. Under the pretext of taking inventory of the goods and assets, the special force searched and ransacked every house and shop in the district, and confiscated goods and valuables of 50,000 retailers. This operation continued to mid-April. On March 24th, the SRV announced that all private and manufacturing
businesses were required to be nationalized (Chang, 1982; Corfield, 2013; Tran, 1993). Around 30,000 businesses were closed in HCMC. On March 31, the SRV banned all private trades in the country, which affected thousands of small traders. The Chinese community desperately resisted the police, as a result the streets in Cho Lon were reported by witnesses to be full of corpses. Above all, those whose properties were confiscated and businesses liquidated were forced to move within one month to new economic zones in the remote border provinces to reclaim virgin land and become agricultural producers (Chang, 1982). A
29 part of them were drafted into armed forces and sent to the Cambodia-Vietnam border to fight. Others were sent to re-education camps. The Chinese considered these three options as death sentences. On top of that, on May 4th, the SRV announced the single currency policy
(Chang, 1982; Corfield, 2013). All residents had to surrender their old and foreign currencies for the new Vietnamese dong. However, there was a limit to this. Each couple could at most exchange US$100 worth of the new currency, and US$25 for each child. And no more than US$250 could be exchanged by any city family and no more than US$150 by a rural family. Before 1979, the SRV was mainly concerned with controlling economic activities in HCMC and China’s influence on the local Chinese population. On the contrary, during the 1980s the SRV seems to be concerned over improving the relations with the remaining Chinese population (Ungar, 1987). They feared the possibility of political uprisings by the ethnic Chinese. In 1986, the state started đổi mới (open-door policy). In the present, Cho Lon still contains many shops, restaurants and enterprises with Chinese storefront signs. In Cho Lon, the schools teach Chinese as a foreign language. The penal laws are translated into Chinese. It offers Teochew opera. News and propaganda is translated in Chinese and HCMC also airs radio programs in Chinese. This all functioned as an effort to integrate the Chinese more successfully. With the freeing of the economy in the 1990s, it has been estimated that although the Chinese make up 3% of the total population in HCMC, they control about half of the trade and dominate most markets (Corfield, 2013).
3.2 Transformation of Cho Lon into a multiracial place
Take note that the Chinese population of Saigon-Cho Lon was 34% in 1952 and there was a staggering drop to 3% in 1989. In 1989, 56.5% were Cantonese and 34% Teochew (Tran, 1993). The start of the new regime resulted in drastic changes in the environment of the remaining Chinese. This section explores the transformation of Cho Lon.
My confidants remember the robe-in of Cho Lon in horror. Families lost their fortunes and family members have committed suicide out of desperation. Many, therefore, hold a grudge against the Vietnamese. The marginalization of the Chinese caused resentment against the Vietnamese, which played a key role in boundary making between the two communities. The Chinese were desperate to leave Vietnam. The discriminatory events
30 resulted in a mass exodus in the following years (Chang, 1982; Corfield, 2013; Tran, 1993). The people who used boats to reach other countries, came to be known as the boat people. Many have died on their way to freedom (Caplan, Choy, & Whitmore, 1991). Many of the Teochew confidants have family members who died on their way to the US. The pain of their losses during the discriminatory policies is still alive today.
Due to the exodus, the proportion of the Chinese population of the Vietnamese total population had dropped to 1.5% in 1989 (Tran, 1993). The Chinese government accused the Vietnamese government of discrimination against the Chinese in Vietnam. However, the SRV claims that these harsh measures do not necessarily target the Chinese population but capitalism. Since the Chinese population constituted the majority of businessmen, they happen to be most affected by the communist regime. Also, the demonstrations by the Chinese population in HCMC were triggers for these harsh measures to be taken against all bourgeois elements in Vietnam regardless of their ethnic backgrounds. However, one could also say that the operations were planned and designed to challenge China (Chang, 1982). My confidants state that the SRV are liars, they are highly suspicious of the state.
The state was involved in the high exodus of the ethnic Chinese. The Public Security Bureau has set up offices for registration and approval of applicants wanting to go abroad, which were primary geared towards the ethnic Chinese. The costs of the departures were fixed prices between 3.5 and 4.5 taels of gold per person, in total the proceeds are estimated at 115 million dollars (Tsamenyi, 1983). My confidants have stated that the price was 5 taels of gold, and the ones who could afford it would leave. The Chinese were the second wave of boat refugees. In 1975, there was the first wave of boat people, who were the
highly-educated Vietnamese, who backed the ROV. In comparison to the first wave, the second wave were highly entrepreneurial, but less affluent and educated (Wood, 1997). The internal
makeup of the ethnic Chinese in HCMC has drastically changed when the richest have left. Next to the out flux of the ethnic Chinese, there was an influx of ethnic Vietnamese in Cho Lon. Confidants remember that the state has given the Chinese the opportunity for a short term to build houses on their land. The land which the Chinese did not make use of was confiscated by the state and distributed among the ethnic Vietnamese. As the Chinese lost their liquid assets, they could not afford to construct buildings within this period. The
Kinh-31 Vietnamese arrived, mainly from Northern and Central Vietnam and started to live among the ethnic Chinese.
With the exodus of the ethnic Chinese, a pool of people competent in the Chinese language and script left. After the Vietnamese interference with Cambodia, stopping the genocide of the Pol Pot regime, the relations between Vietnam and China deteriorated further. In 1979, the relations between the two countries were severed. Chinese language, together with French and English, became the language of an enemy. Ethnic Chinese schools were nationalized and the state only enforced Vietnamese education. The acquisition of foreign languages outside the education became suspect (Wright, 2002).
The environment of Cho Lon transformed from typically Chinese, to a place that is dominated by the Vietnamese and the state. Anti-Chinese policies may have established boundaries between the ethnic Chinese and the Vietnamese. However, spatial conjunction of the ethnic Chinese and the Vietnamese, and the Vietnamisation of the institutions may have led to boundary crossing practices.
3.3 Four generations of Teochew-Vietnamese
This section creates an understanding of the sentiment of today’s Saigonese citizens on the Vietnamese state and how this sentiment applies to the Teochew-Vietnamese in the process of boundary creation and crossing. The median age of the Vietnamese population is 30.8 years-old (Viet Nam population, 2017). As the robe-in of Cho Lon was in 1975, this means that the majority of the people have not experienced the anti-Chinese attitudes of Vietnam’s state. However, the memories of the horrific situation after the American war are still echoing in HCMC. An interesting fact is that the Saigonese refuse to use HCMC as the name of the place they inhabit. They stubbornly call it Saigon, which suggests that the negative memories against the reunification are still present. Therefore, I will proceed by using Saigon from now on. Moreover, the elderly Teochew-Vietnamese are still pleasantly memorizing the French colonizer. The period that France ruled Cochin China has been the most flourishing period for the ethnic Chinese. The Teochew-Vietnamese are influenced by the changing environment. The different experiences of the Teochew-Vietnamese explain particular mind-sets and
32 practices. This section sets out categories of Teochew-Vietnamese in relation to the collective memories of the different regimes and policies.
The three events that most influenced the life of the Teochew-Vietnamese today are 1) the fall of the French colony in 1954, 2) the reunification of Vietnam and the robe-in of Cho Lon in 1978, and 3) the commencement of đổi mới in 1986. Therefore, I am placing the Teochew-Vietnamese into four categories.
First, generation one, these are the Teochew-Vietnamese born before 1950. They have overcome different attitudes of Vietnam’s state regarding the ethnic Chinese. They have the clearest memory of the prosperous period for the ethnic Chinese under the rule of
France. Some of them state that the French loved the ethnic Chinese, welcomed them in Vietnam and cooperated with them. The Teochew sojourners were the parents or grandparents of this generation. China’s economy was highly developed commercially
compared to Vietnam, therefore the Chinese filled in the entrepreneurial gaps (Y. Wu, 1983). This is in line with the memories of my confidants. Furthermore, they have experienced the fall of the Cochin China and the regime of the ROV. The anti-Chinese policies of the ROV only indirectly affected this generation. As they were born in Vietnam, they were declared to be Vietnamese citizens. My confidants state that the Teochew-Vietnamese did not interfere with politics at the time, because the ethnic Chinese were business people and did not care about political affairs. The temporariness of sojourning made them politically disinterested. Because of this disinterest, they did not form a threat to the colonizers. This made them thrive
economically (Y. Wu, 1983). Their daily lives did not change much under the regime of the ROV. They still lived in Cho Lon, the Chinese bubble within Vietnam.
This generation has also experienced the American war and their generation was the one that demonstrated to regain their Chinese citizenship. The latter shows that they have relatively strong relations with China. They or their peers or family members have fled the country, were sent to economic zones, re-education programs, or the Vietnamese army. In comparison, 34% of the Vietnamese born in Australia are ethnic Chinese, they and their parents, who are of the same age as generation one, have painful memories of the persecution in Vietnam. This distances them from the Vietnamese community in Australia towards the Chinese community (Thomas, 1997). Some of the peers and family members of generation one died after the war. And they were the victims of the purge during the robe-in
33 of Cho Lon, or witnessed it from within. The traumatic events pushed them towards the identification with China. This is similar to the sentiment of the Chinese-Indonesians, who sided with the Dutch colonizer as opposed to the indigenous Indonesians as described by Ang (2001). During the fieldwork, I noticed that this generation has the strongest anti-Vietnamese sentiment due to the negative memories of the state policies. In the present, they mainly befriend fellow Teochew-Vietnamese and PTD. They rarely go outside and live relatively secluded from the Vietnamese community.
Second is generation two. This generation is born between 1951 and 1969. These are children of generation one. During their childhood, they have lived spatially segregated from the Vietnamese. They experienced the American war and like generation one, the negative outcomes of that war. Many of this generation had also fled Vietnam, to seek for a better life elsewhere. The ones, who were teenagers after the American war, were often recruited for the army or as cadets to patrol the city to imprison suspected individuals. Their lives are the most drastically changed after the transformation of Cho Lon, because they did not seclude themselves from the Vietnamese community. In fact, they learned that they depended on the Vietnamese. This generation was the first, who started to acquire the Vietnamese language.
Third, generation three is born between 1970 and 1985. Their parents are usually categorized as generation one or generation two. While, some of them have experienced the war and its outcomes, they do not remember much of it. Others are born after the war. The environment, which is mixed with the Vietnamese, is the only environment they know. They speak fluently Vietnamese. However, they, too, have negative emotions towards the state. Confidants have pointed at elementary schools that used to be owned by the ethnic Chinese and show their sorrow of the loss of the schools and the language. One woman, Chi, stated that she was imprisoned at the age of 6 together with her classmates and mother for two weeks, after she was caught attending a Chinese language class. Furthermore, this generation relive the American war through stories told by their generation one and two, and are
influenced by the negative attitude of generation one towards the Vietnamese. Their experience is comparable to that of Ang (2001). Different from Ang, they were not as much affected by Vietnamese nationalism and did not grow the desire to assimilate with the
Vietnamese. The Vietnamese peers in Saigon did not pressure them to assimilate. This may be because that the Saigonese have anti-state sentiment themselves. During fieldwork, all
34 Saigonese, including the ones whose family originate from the North express their ‘hatred’ towards Northern Vietnam. The Northerners are seen as intruders. Many Saigonese express that they would never want to visit North Vietnam, especially Hanoi, because they “hate the Northerners”. Some confidants go as far as stating that they “rather die than be in Hanoi”. Northern Vietnamese themselves remember how they were discriminated against in Saigon and pressured to change their accent. The Teochew-Vietnamese have not experienced such marginalization from their peers.
At last, generation four has lived their lives after đổi mới, 1986. Their environment has always been dominated by the Vietnamese. The life-expectancy of people in Vietnam born in 1936, is estimated to be around 30-35 years, and of those born in the period 1950-1955 is estimated 40.4 years (Merli, 1998). This means that the majority of the people born before 1950 (generation one) are likely to be no more in the 1990s. This, thus means that generation four is the least influenced by generation one. This generation, however, is most assimilated with the Vietnamese society. Most of them do not speak the ethnic language. They are, like Ang (2001), assimilated due to state oppression that happened before their birth. Despite the new policies of the state to welcome Chinese culture, they are deprived of Chinese
institutions in order to learn the culture of their ancestors.
The division of the different generations is important because every generation has encountered different effects of state policies and attitudes. These have influenced their attitudes towards the Vietnamese, and their ability to develop knowledge and skills to maintain their ethnic culture. This translates into different boundary-making and -crossing practices and gives meaning to the ‘self-other’ talk, which places them against the
