Abstract
This chapter attempts to unfold the family drama of mainland Chinese migrants in Singapore in terms of their gender and generation politics—the interpersonal as well as role conflicts within the domestic domain as they were engendered and negotiated during the migration process. The “better life” promise of migration for each and every family member was scrutinised—each time gazing at a different member in the context of his or her institutionalised position in the family. As it happened, divided rather than common interests emerged. Not all benefited from moving. Yet all were convinced of the family having made “the right move”. The social construction of the family was further strengthened by transnationalism, which reproduced the “reality” of family solidarity through mundane everyday life activities acted out across borders. But when internalised as a construct, an ideal, the family bonded its members—thus its internal cohesiveness. It also bound and controlled the self. Sure there were gains, but there were also losses, especially on the part of the less powerful. Globalization and transnationalism have yet to fulfil their promises.
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Notes
- 1.
Teaching Chinese is one major source of income for women migrants, especially the newly arrived. Few of them were formally trained in teaching the Chinese language. The sister-in-law of one of our respondents taught Chinese despite having been trained to teach English at the secondary school level in China.
- 2.
Le told us that he was expecting his daughter to be there as well. His wife decided that it would be inconvenient to bring her along. Le thought that his wife might be tired of taking care of the girl and wanted a break from childcare.
- 3.
In China Zhen worked in a bank for five years and held a middle-management position at the time she decided to leave her job. Her proficiency in the English language explains why she was able to obtain a job there with ease.
- 4.
Poston and Yu (1990, pp. 480–481) divided the emigration history of China into four periods: the ancient period from the Chinese dynasties thousands of years ago to the mid-Qing dynasty in the eighteenth century; from the decline of Imperial China to the Republican period in the 1940s; the first three decades of the People’s Republic of China to the late1970s; and the contemporary period. A brief overview of that history in relation to Southeast Asia is provided by Skeldon (1992a, b) and Pryor (1979).
- 5.
For instance: Min, a 35-year-old single woman, told us, “The people here speak English, but I don’t. I speak Chinese. I guess that’s the difference.” She communicated this idea in English. As a Canadian citizen who had spent about 10 years in Canada and, before that, five in Norway, both times in English-speaking communities, Min speaks English fluently. Her statement should be read as part of a construction of her “authentic” Chinese identity, which she uses to distinguish herself from the local people in Singapore.
- 6.
These ties might not be lost after all with advances in the technology of long-distance communication. However, the costs involved in using these technologies to upkeep these ties require vigorous estimation.
- 7.
An extract from a primary-five textbook used in almost all the primary schools in Singapore. On the same page is the chorus of the song, “Heart of the Nation”:
Family is everything
The joy, the hope, a home can bring.
Family’s a living light
To guide you through the darkest night.
The heart and soul of your life is the love
You always find when you’re safe at home.
It’s the strength of a new generation
It’s the heart of the nation.
The song was composed to mark the First International Year of the Family in 1994. The “effectiveness” of the ideology of “the family” comes about precisely as a result of this kind of continual construction and reinforcement of the “reality” of “the family” through institutions such as education and the state, as well as through the family itself.
- 8.
In his preface to Madness and Civilization (1971), Foucault argued that, until the mad person speaks the language of the sane, he will continue to be perceived as mad. There is a need to go back to a zero point just before the divide between the mad and the sane came into being.
- 9.
All interviews except five were conducted in Putonghua. The language used does matter, as shown by one interview session with Zhang. There were long pauses in the conversation while Zhang thought about what he wanted to say until the language was switched from English to Putonghua, at which point Zhang responded easily.
- 10.
Although most were willing to talk about their own migration history, personal questions proved offensive to two interviewees, Pan and Liang. Pan, who had training in the hard sciences, could not understand the use of the individual experience, finding it a waste of time. Towards the second half of the hour-long interview, he became less uneasy and more willing to talk about his and his family’s migration moves. Liang was willing to answer general types of questions but hesitant about telling his own story throughout the interview.
- 11.
Zeng arrived four years ago, and his wife joined him half a year later. Now his parents-in-law also live with them and help his wife, who has stopped working, look after their son.
- 12.
Ao went to Singapore about ten years ago as a bachelor. He was married to a Singaporean woman.
- 13.
Ling was a student. She worked for a tuition centre when she first came and later through the principal got a job in a Chinese publication department. After working there for about a year, she found the pay structure to be highly discriminatory and unfair to her, so she quit. She then shared a five-room rented flat with another couple from China.
- 14.
Xing, 36, has been in Singapore since 1993. Like Jian, she came from China to join her husband, Feng, who was then working as an architect there. She brought along her son, then four. She is now a teacher in a childcare centre. She was inexperienced in this area, given her professional training in advanced mathematical calculations with applications in satellite initiation. She was the only one in the family who still held a Chinese passport while Feng, her son and her younger daughter, who was born there, already had their Singapore citizenship.
- 15.
Jiao lived with her husband and her 10-year-old girl. Her parents went to Singapore to visit them 10 months ago. But according to her, they would not stay much longer as they could not adjust to the lifestyle and could not find other old folks to talk to. They only spoke the Fujian dialect and their neighbours did not.
- 16.
These “facts” are not easily assessed, however. Much of the detail had been lost due to the lapse of time between the actual migration and our research. The major events as narrated were sanitised accounts of their moves.
- 17.
Mei, 32, went to Singapore alone, on a student pass, leaving her family in China. Her son was then seven. Her husband, Mo, is a dentist; Mei is an engineer, which is perhaps why she was the initiator of the migration. Mei went on a scholarship for a postgraduate position in a local university. This job provided for her living expenses and later, Mo’s. Mo went over half a year later, also on a student pass. Due to the difficulty in securing a place in the medical school, he enrolled in a Master in Business Administration course instead. Her son had been in Mei’s parents’ care since she left. Since Mei and Mo were on student passes, neither can apply for their son to come over. At the time of this study, her case had been on hold for a year.
- 18.
Ling was not the only one who insisted that children were forgetful. One of our respondents even asserted that young children can be taken anywhere as long as their toys are with them. Another mother said that once children start going to school and making friends there, they will not remember anything back in China.
- 19.
Such conversations went like this: “How’s everyone been?”; “How’s your health?”; “Any problems?”.
- 20.
It was usually the wives who made the phone calls, not the husbands.
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Kwok-bun, C., Sing, S.C. (2013). The Politics of Migrant Family Drama: Mainland Chinese Immigrants in Singapore. In: Kwok-bun, C. (eds) International Handbook of Chinese Families. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0266-4_3
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