Cultural appropriation, being Hokkien and kakilang

I've had a weird day. Let me tell you what happened chronologically as there's no better way for me to tell this story. I had an audition today - I was given the chance to read for two parts in a movie. I can't divulge any details, but it suffices to say that it is set in China but everyone speaks English. This is aimed at the children audience (think of films like Frozen and Mulan). I was supposed to memorize the script before I went for the audition but each time I read the script, I cringed so bad. I cannot divulge any details of this project, so let me mock up a passage in the same style.

Is this Chinese? Does it reflect my cultural identity?

Temple Monk

Why have you come back? I have already told you, I can't help you. 

Shaolin Warrior 

But I made a promise I will return to Pagoda village to help them. 

Temple Monk

You cannot go there now. The terrible brothers: Chopsuey and Chopsticks have taken over that village. Even the Emperor Wok fears them. He sent his two best men: generals Kungpao and Kungfu, but neither of them could deal with Chopsuey and Chopsticks. You have no idea what you are up against, do you? Don't be stubborn.

Shaolin Warrior

Can you help me please, O great monk? Come with me. We're stronger together.

Temple Monk

I am but a humble monk. (He bows deeply.) My place is in the Taichi temple to guard the scrolls. However, if you can find the golden fortune cookie, then you will become invincible. But be warned, the infamous Jade Dragon jealously guards the golden fortune cookie in the ancient Yin and Yang bamboo forest. Only giant pandas dwell in that forest, not even the bravest warriors dare to venture there. Your heart is pure but you are not ready to face the Jade Dragon.

Shaolin Warrior

Then please show me the way to the Yin and Yang ancient bamboo forest, great monk.

Temple Monk

You know you are risking certain death? (Laughs) Hopefully the pandas will bury your body. 

Do you know why cultural appropriation is wrong?

Okay you get the idea. It is that cringe worthy - it sounds like it was either written by a white person who is trying to include every single stereotypical icon of Chinese culture on every page of the script or it was deliberately written to appeal to a 12 year old in a small town in America who has perhaps been to a Chinese restaurant once in the last two years and knows virtually nothing about Chinese culture. Talk about cultural appropriation - it was painful to read that script. I had the script open on my laptop and made some attempts to memorize it - but as I truly hated what I read, the temptation was to look at something else on the internet instead that was less revolting. Of course I was offended by the writing, but it was a big budget film and I didn't want to piss my agent off by not going to the audition since it would have been well paid work. I had to read for two parts at the audition - ironically, one part was fairly straight forward and the lines didn't contain any cultural cliches but the other one. Good grief. It starts with a huge speech which seemed to contain every single Chinese cultural cliche you could think of. But such is the job of the actor - you are meant to just memorize your lines and recite them; the writers come up with the script, not you. 

Well, I failed to memorize that speech. I did read it through several times and knew it reasonably well, but not to the point where I could memorize it by heart. I asked the casting director if I could have the script in my hand and oh my goodness me, that upset him. He said that I was unprofessional - how many actors would give an arm and a leg to be in my position, to be auditioning for a part in a big budget feature film and I couldn't be asked to memorize the script that was just a few pages long? He said I should have stayed up all night if I had to just to memorize it and most casting directors would have said, "your audition is over, you didn't get the part, get out and stop wasting my time". Well, needless to say, it was nothing short of a scolding and I apologized but the damage had been done. So he allowed me to have the script in my hand and I did the audition anyway; I had to look down on the script a few times and quite frankly, if I had memorized it instead of throwing a tantrum every time I felt offended by the terrible writing, well, I could have done it easily. But instead, I had a bad audition. A really bad one and when things go that badly, I just go poker-face and hide my emotions. I remained very calm but the moment I got out of the building, I felt awful. Thankfully there was a church next to the casting studio and I could go in there, sit down for a while and calm down. I knew I didn't get the part, I just hope I didn't offend that casting director by doing such a bad audition. I have done bad auditions before, this is not the first time I messed up big time - but I felt terrible as I could have obediently memorized the script (whether or not I liked the writing). He was right - I was unprofessional. I threw a tantrum by refusing to memorize the script because I hated the writing. Perhaps it is because I am a writer, a blogger - and I am Chinese on top of that, so I felt that I could have written a far better, less stupid script. But regardless, I have messed up big time. 

There was a right way and a wrong way to respond.

I decided to stick to plan A and go to my favourite Chinese restaurant in London Chinatown for lunch - I was about to go on a very long trip to the Caribbean and wouldn't get any authentic Chinese food there, so I had my favourite Sweekao (prawn dumpling) noodles. As it was lunchtime and the restuarant was very busy, I had to share tables with two men. I heard something familiar - they were speaking Singapore Hokkien. Well, the older man sounded 100% Singaporean and his son was speaking in a mish-mash of English and Hokkien. So as I reached over for the soy sauce, the elderly gentleman passed it to me and I said, "Kum siah". Well, that started a very long conversation - you see, you will hear plenty of Mandarin and Cantonese in London, but Hokkien or Teochew is relatively rare. So the old man who was very talkative started telling me all about his family - he started telling me about his children, his grandchildren and then his great-grandchildren. As we were speaking in Hokkien, I was just happy to be able to practice the language - I used to be fluent in Hokkien when I was younger, but now it is somewhat rusty and I appreciated any opportunity to speak it. This gentleman had moved from Singapore to London to work in the restaurant trade many years ago and is now retired. He was having lunch with his son to my surprise, was also retired. The elderly Hokkien gentleman must have been in his 80s or 90s whilst his son must have been in his 60s. 

Anyway, the three of us sat there and talked in Hokkien for over an hour, with the elderly gentleman doing most of the talking - proudly telling us about the Chinese restaurant he used to ran and about his extended family, of course. Like his son who was raised here in England, I had to speak in a mixture of English and Hokkien, but made a valiant effort to speak as much Hokkien as possible. Now there was something about that experience that brought back childhood memories, of going to those family gatherings where all the Hokkien relatives from my mother's side of the family would get together - the older folks would sit at the kitchen table and chat in Hokkien. Oh I missed that and just sitting there with that father and son brought back such memories, I kept thinking about my late grandmother with whom I would speak Hokkien with. I felt honoured and lucky to have shared that lunch experience with them as they were such lovely people. We shared a genuine connection and a sense of kinship through Hokkien. When the bill came, the elderly gentleman insisted that he would pay for me despite my protests, When I said, kum siah uncle, he merely tapped my hand and said, "gwa lang si kakilang, uncle tsia luh" (we are of the same people, it is uncle's treat). How sweet was that. I told him that if we ran into each other in that same restaurant again, it would be my turn to treat him. 

There was a genuine sense of kinship - of kakilang.

So what did I learn from this episode? Well, firstly, that I have my own way of relating to my Chinese (or quite specifically in this case: my Hokkien roots) and I hate it when white people are guilty of cultural appropriation, when white people say, "oh you're Chinese, great - so these are the things associated with your culture according to what we understand of your country." There is clearly a huge difference: I refused to be defined by the stereotypical cliches of Chinese culture that white people are most familiar with because most of those cliches do not apply to me - I would very much like to have the opportunity to speak up for myself, to explain to white people what being Chinese means to me and admittedly, it can be pretty hard even for me to put my finger on it when I am pretty much a yellow banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). When my cultural identity is pretty darn white, sometimes it feels rather hypocritical to even try to define what being Chinese means to me - well, thankfully today's lunchtime episode has reminded me that at least I do have that linguistic link via my mother tongue Hokkien (which is strangely enough my sixth language after English, French, Mandarin, Welsh and Spanish). Speaking Hokkien connects me with so many childhood memories and reminds me of where I have come from, of my extended family back in Singapore. 

What else did I learn? Well, cultural appropriation by white people sucks. It bloody sucks and I hate it when I come across it. That script was fucking awful indeed - I am still so appalled that big film studios can pour so much money into such a major film project and still come up with such a poorly written script. However, I reacted by pretty much throwing the script across the room, refusing to memorize it and then making feeble excuses when I went to the audition about why I had not memorized it. I didn't even have the balls to tell the white casting director what I thought about the script - well, because as actor, we're supposed to simply read the lines on the page. If I had protested, then he would have probably told me that I was in the wrong business and should have become a writer instead. My agent would have probably said the same thing - it's a job hazard, it comes with the territory and I should know that after so many years in the industry. But the bottom line is this: nobody has ever made the world a better place by throwing a tantrum. We all get angry over the injustices in the world but I am sorry with the poor response I came up with - I am an intelligent and rational person. I know I am capable of better than that and in the future and I will try to do better. 

I have thought long and hard about what my response should be and I have decided to make another Hokkien vlog piece. After all, I have done one before and it turned out to be quite popular and successful. So clearly, that's something that I can do to address the imbalance when it comes to cultural appropriation. I have seen some Hokkien videos on Youtube and quite frankly, I'm not impressed with the quality. I'm sure I can do something to contribute to the number of Hokkien videos on Youtube and speak up for myself to tell the world what my mother tongue means to me. Yeah that would be a far more meaningful response than any kind of lame tantrum I can throw. I promise I will make that Hokkien video when I get back from this long trip. After all, I think it is quite sad that the younger generation of Singaporeans don't speak much Hokkien anymore - after all, Mandarin and English were never the mother tongues of our grandparents and great-grandparents, if you don't speak the mother tongues of you ancestors, then you are losing that vital connection within one generation. Perhaps in a small way, using my influence as a popular blogger/vlogger, I can help preserve the Hokkien language and that would be my constructive response to reading that bloody awful script. And no, Singlish is by no means the same, you simply cannot compare Hokkien to Singlish. 

So there you go. I regret my tantrum but I am also glad I met that lovely Hokkien father and son at the Chinese restaurant - the next time I encounter a frustrating situation, I will resolve to react in a constructive manner rather than throw a tantrum. I'm very glad I've been able to share my experience here on my blog. Many thanks for reading.