Lincoln Tan: True loyalty transcends the bounds of tokenism

Last week, I was asked to pledge my allegiance. The call was not from Prime Minister Helen Clark or Winston Peters, or the Singapore Government, reacting to comments I made in this column two weeks ago.

The request came from a Chinese reporter wanting to interview me about my "true intentions" in collaborating with the Herald on a story about Chinese prostitutes in Auckland.

She wanted to know if my loyalty was to the Chinese people or, because I wrote English, to Westerners.

Not only was this the first time I had received such a request from a fellow reporter, it was also the first time in my life I had been asked to justify why I, as a journalist, reported news.

The increase in Chinese prostitutes was news - so I did a story. Isn't that what journalists are supposed to do?

The reporter, who said she was not speaking for herself but for many in the Chinese community, went further. She asked: "As a Chinese reporter, do you think of your responsibility to the Chinese community?"

"What is that responsibility?" I asked.

Her reply: "To protect Chinese face."

I told her that the "honour" of becoming Lord Protector was too great for me to accept and asked her to tell her audience I could never live up to that expectation of the community.

Just weeks ago, I was sent an email from a Chinese student labelling me - and my co-editor at iBall, Charles Chan - as second-class Chinese because we are not from the mainland.

Growing up in Singapore, I never really thought of myself as Chinese, perhaps because I am Peranakan (Straits-born Chinese), meaning that somewhere in my ancestry I had a great-great-somebody from Malaya.

There is a clear distinction in the Chinese language between being a hua ren (ethnic Chinese) and zhong guo ren (Chinese national), and while I feel I am an ethnic Chinese, I find it hard to identify with Chinese from the mainland.

Funnily enough, I have become more Chinese in New Zealand than I was in Singapore. I eat more Chinese food here. I shop more Chinese. When I do my grocery shopping, it's usually at one of the many Chinese grocery shops in Northcote.

I have more Chinese friends. But most are not from the mainland. They come from Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and include New Zealand-born Chinese.

So the response to the prostitute story I reported with Julie Middleton shocked me.

A few individuals took it upon themselves to become the guardians of Chinese face. They felt that a report on Chinese individuals was an attack on the entire community and they went on the offensive - through phone calls to the media, emails and online.

On one Chinese website the discussion forums were filled with angry accusations that the Herald was attacking the Chinese community and there were calls from its members to "stand up for the Chinese".

In another, there was a call for all Chinese - from Taiwan, Hong Kong and beyond - to stand united to "save the face of Chinese" by speaking out against New Zealanders.

The tone and some of the language was comparable to white supremacists' websites.The words used were divisive and emotive.

A Chinese website operator insists that the discussions were harmless and that the forums were just an avenue for a community largely ignored by mainstream media to "let off steam".

He said many Chinese here suffered from low esteem because they could not get jobs in line with their qualifications and experienced difficulties in integration. The internet provided a platform for them to express their thoughts without the need to "expose their identities".

Perhaps that might explain the email, sent under the banner of "United China" to iBall saying: "They say you are Chinese but traitor Chinese, so if you want to be one of us you must unite with us. I hope you consider your colour and stand united with the people of China in NZ so you can one day become first class Chinese to us and stop taking side of white people."

I showed this email to the Chinese website operator and he commented sadly that some Chinese still believed in the myth of China's inherent superiority.

He said that there was no such thing as a "United China". On his website forums he found that Southern Chinese resented Northerners, local Chinese disagreed with international students on most things, and older Chinese had completely different views to younger ones. How can anyone be a spokesperson or the protector for the entire community?

I declined to be interviewed by the Chinese reporter because I am not used to dealing with media organisations that see their role as being public relations promoters for a community. On where my allegiance lay, I told her that it was with New Zealand, my adopted homeland.

Putting issues on the table where they can be discussed is far more important than sweeping things under the carpet, pretending they do not exist.

The feeling by ethnic minorities that they do not have a voice can lead to serious and dangerous consequences. Remember how some Muslim youths in Britain felt that they did not have a voice and the only way to be heard was through calculated acts of violence?

Helping mainstream media to rise above ignorance and tokenism is a more important role for Chinese journalists than being "face protector" for a community which has survived criticisms and attacks for thousands of years.

As Chinese, I told my inquisitor that we must change how we think. Remember that China's downfall in the past was attributable to its thinking that everyone outside the Middle Kingdom was a barbarian.

* Lincoln Tan is managing editor of iBall, a free fortnightly English-language Asian newspaper.