Being Eurasian: Memories Across Racial Divides

Chapter 2: The Birth of a Eurasian Community

2฀ > I « > • O • 1 = z The Birth of a Eurasian Community Little Edith Eaton says to herself, 'Why are we what we are? I and my brothers and sisters Why did God make us to be hooted and stared at~> Papa is English, mamma is Chinese Why couldn't we have been either one thing or the other? Why is my mother's race despised? I believe that some day a great part of the world will be Eurasian I cheer myself with the thought that I am but a pioneer A pioneer should glory in suffering ' (Sui Sin Far [Edith Eaton], 'Leaves From the Mental Portfolio of a Eurasian', 222) The person of mixed blood is one whom fate has condemned to live in two societies and in two, not merely different but antagonistic cultures (Park, [1937] 1961 , xm) U nlike their Portuguese counterparts i n Macau, the British colonia l attitude towards miscegenation had never embraced the kind of free liberalism promoted by its neighbour. Under the Portuguese colonial ideology, miscegenation was officially hailed as a positive step towards social harmony an d a for m o f th e 'benig n consummatio n o f Portugues e panracialism' (C. Cheng, 156) . As C. Cheng says, extensive miscegenation becomes the distinctive pattern of Portuguese presence in Africa an d Asia. Affonso d e Albuquerque, wh o Brag a describes a s being th e greates t o f Portugal's governors of India and an important figure in the building of the Portuguese empire in Asia, had already in the 1500s advocated his policy of inducing his countrymen t o settle down and produce a loyal populatio n through mixed marriages with native women (Braga, 85-88). Intermarriages, as Braga suggests, became one important strategy of successful colonization . 14 Being Eurasian: Memories Across Racial Divides The Britis h colonial leader s i n Hong Kong, on th e other hand, ha d quite a n opposit e vie w of marriages or unions with nativ e women . Th e troubling question of racial mixture i n colonial encounters was not onl y seen as a colonial transgression, but the idea of racial mixture often fed th e colonial imagination with phantoms of degeneration, abnormality, as well as moral and intellectual regression. It was government policy to insist on demarcating a safe distance from th e indigenous elements in the colony . Their attitude s toward s th e product s of miscegenation coul d shif t fro m abominations, contemptuousness, suspicion, and avoidance to trust, hope, reliance and dependence. From the time when Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842 up until the Japanese invasion in 1941, Hong Kong was a society based on segregation. Early colonial anxieties about the intermixing of Europeans and Chines e were reflected i n a letter t o the Duk e of Newcastle i n 186 1 by Sir John Bowring (Governor, 1859-65) , as he fretted ove r the rapid increase in the Chinese population . My constant thought has been how best to prevent a large Chinese population establishing themselves [sic] at Kowloon, and as some native populatio n i s indispensable, ho w best t o keep the m t o themselves and preserve the European and American community from the injury and inconvenienceof intermixture with them (Endacott, 1964, 122) To ensur e a stabl e distanc e betwee n th e Chines e an d Europea n communities, various laws and rules were made to maintain the segregation of the two races. The Pea k Reservation Ordinance s were passed in 188 8 and reaffirme d i n 190 4 (an d was not repealed unti l 1946) . Some hotel s such as the Hong Kong Hotel, only allowed Chinese int o certain room s and they were not allowed to stay overnight (Carroll , 120). There was also the Light and Pass Ordinance — a law formalized in 1857 (Sinn, 10) which clearly reflects th e European distrust of the Chinese community, and was not abolished until 1895. The Birth of a Eurasian Community 15 There were, of course, the more liberal-minded groups of colonialists who frowned upo n such absolut e segregation . Si r John Pop e Hennessy , Governor from 187 7 to 1882 , whose wife was of a Eurasian background , was shocked at the rift between the two races. His liberal policy of inviting the...