My name is Tim Ford, and I am half-Chinese.
Even looking at that sentence, in a vacuum, seems counter-intuitive. With such a banal, White with a capital W, monosyllabic thud of a name, how can I claim to be fully one-half Chinese? That starting gate, I feel, must be the kickoff for the race of questions that always seem to follow my revelation of heritage to new people:
What part of China are you from?
Do you have a Chinese name?
Do you speak Chinese?
etc. etc. etc.
In point of fact, my answers to these questions have always been as tedious as the questions themselves. Whatever excitement strangers - or even friends - would feel, learning of this exotic far eastern part of me, was quickly tempered by the rapid revelation that I am very distant from my Chinese heritage.
This is partly a question of circumstance. My mother did not speak her parents' native Toishanese in the household as me and my siblings grew up. My grandparents lived in Burnaby, and we lived in Calgary, and while we visited usually at minimum once a year, they were still at a literal distance. That distance was further a metaphorical one, for while they spoke very good English, my grandparents and I were split by age, cultural background, and a gulf of my being one among many, many grandchildren.
If I'm being very honest, I still don't know much about them. I was a pallbearer at my grandfather's funeral, in 2005, at the gentle urging of my Uncle Michael, who offered his place to me. It is a terrible truth, and a sad tragedy, that one of the closest moments I felt to my grandfather, William Him Sue Yee, was when I helped carry his coffin from church to grave.
I remember the open casket viewing very well. My grandfather had always struck me as a very lively, happy man - one of my fondest memories is of him dancing at my cousin's wedding with his great-grandchildren (or at least I think that's what it was...the occasion itself is blurred by time, but the image of my grandfather, looking very sharp in his suit, gently taking the hands of a child as he walked them through a box step, is clear as day). In his final resting place, however, his face was solemn and quiet. His skin looked...stretched. And he seemed so very, very small.
The skin I wear is not obviously Chinese. In Canada, most people don't give my racial background a second thought. They think, no doubt, only on my name, and do not press further...not without some kind of prompt, anyway. And for a very, very long time in my life, I was content with this status quo.
Photos by Alberta Dera (left) myself, and Arjunsyah (right)
There is an unquestionable advantage in simply being White in North America, especially as a man. To be a part of the dominant cultural, racial, and gender group. Unmistakably, I have been gifted with benefits that many people can only dream of: an upper middle-class family life, with stable, loving parents. A series of jobs which, I must consistently think back on, have been at least in part owed to my gender, sexual orientation, and race. A University education, mainly paid for by the aforementioned parents.
It was during that bachelor's degree that I felt, for the first time, a pang of regret at how I had not only failed to embrace the heritage of my mother, but even outright rejected it, consciously or unconsciously, in pursuit of "normalcy."
It was a book, you see. Isn't it always a book? Or a play, or a movie, or a poem...art has that unique effect on people, to make them face up to the world, to society, to themselves.
In my case it was Nella Larsen's Passing. Larsen was an author of mixed Danish and Afro-Carribean heritage. Her work was heavily inspired by her own experiences, and Passing is no exception, referring to the racial term for a person of one racial identity either being accepted by another racial group, or being recognized as such by others. In Larsen's novel, two female mixed race friends approach the phenomenon of "passing" in white culture in different ways, with one attempting to "pass" for white, primarily for the sake of her racist, white husband. The tension that grows between the friends, the husband, and their other relationships, boils over in a violent, tragic, conclusion.
You can see how such a work would have a profound effect on my own preconceived notions around my mixed heritage.
Nella Larsen (public domain)
I remember, at the end of the book, feeling a deep sense of shame. I felt as though I had buried part of me for the sake of leading a simple life, "passing" through the world with half my soul unseen. Since then, I have been much more consistent in self-identifying as "half-Chinese, half-Caucasian." I have also been trying to reach out and learn Mandarin - sadly, learning Toishanese isn't terribly practical, particularly with the Chinese government's overwhelming emphasis on the language of Beijing taking precedence over Cantonese and all other regional dialects. And, amongst my immediate family, I have been the first to visit China.
Are these gestures merely symbolic? Am I clutching to a thread of history that may not be relevant any more to my current life? With my grandmother celebrating her 98th birthday this year, am I too little, too late to the table of my ancestry?
I don't know for sure. The age of globalization increasingly batters down the blurred lines of racial divide, even as powerful forces in America and Europe raise up the banners of white nationalism and outright Nazi ideology.
What I do know, is that I am Tim Ford. I am Half-Chinese. And I repeat that every day, if only to remind myself that the person who looks back at me from the mirror is reflected in two places, each with their own stories to tell.
This is Part One in a Series of posts I will be writing in May, which is Asian Heritage Month in Canada. Over the next three weeks I will be writing about my experience visiting Beijing, my perceptions of Asian representation in media and art, and more. If you'd like to subscribe to my posts, click here.
Thank you for reading!