Paper Sons and Daughters

by Ufrieda Ho

  My grandad was one of the only old people in the flats who ignored the

  general hype of the election. It was not something he felt connected to, he

  did not know what all the electioneering was about and he did not get into

  the minibus.

  I could not get to my gran in time, though, and Unisda and I still had

  to vote. We had decided to go to the voting station together and later that

  morning we arrived at Hofland Park recreation centre, not far from our

  home. The excitement was palpable; I was glad we had gone bold with our

  outfits. There was the sense that something special was happening and we

  were going to be part of it.

  The queue was long, though, very long and as the minutes ticked by

  we realised that we were not going to get anywhere for hours; people had

  already stretched to the perimeter of the park. We decided to return in the

  evening. In the end, it was third time lucky for us and we came back for

  a third time, on the extended voting day of the 28th, to finally make our

  crosses.

  People lined up to make history. All the burning tyres, flying stones and

  armoured vehicles had not crushed the hope of this huge snake of people

  waiting patiently, smiling a little and shifting their weight from one foot

  to another.

  I missed my dad so much that day. The paper son, ruled by pieces of

  paper all his life, was not to take ownership of a ballot sheet. His identity

  was made up on a piece of paper; someone’s stamp of approval and

  signature on a piece of paper declared my father ‘a gentleman of good

  standing’; and it was an A5 piece of paper that held his death certificate.

  Each April, as autumn starts to give way to winter, it clocks up another

  year without my father. Just as the weather chills, I feel the frost of loss grip

  my heart all over again and I am taken back to the April night when things

  did fall apart, when the centre did not hold and Yeats’s blood-dimmed tide

  was loosed upon my world.

  But that April day in 1994 I could not help being moved. A cross on

  a piece of paper mattered to all who stood as links in this slow-moving

  meander of humans.

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  18

  The Under-catered

  Party

  One of the biggest social sins you can commit is to under-cater at a Chinese

  function. Chinese are not shy about eating and enjoying their food, lots

  of it.

  There are eight courses plus dessert at a wedding. The tables must groan

  with symbolic luck, fertility and happiness for the couple. The number

  eight is chosen because it is auspicious and guests leave with a reciprocal

  box of biscuits from the bridal party.

  An appropriate present for someone celebrating their 80th birthday is

  noodles and whisky, presented in pairs, and half of the gift is returned to

  the guest. The unbroken strands of noodles symbolise long life, and the

  alcohol represents abundance and enjoyment.

  For a baby’s mun yut, its ‘fi rst full moon’ or full month party, there are

  dyed red eggs and parcels of ginger as take-home gifts.

  It is all about celebrating with food as well as sharing the bounty and

  prosperity presented at a dinner table. At any function, you want people

  to say the food was good, the ‘mushrooms were so silky’, ‘the pork was

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  unbelievably crispy’ and, of course, a resounding ‘I have had way too

  much to eat’.

  The new South Africa started out excitingly enough. Like a happy

  wedding, everyone was given an invitation and just about everyone RSVPed.

  They all wanted to witness it, to be there to cheer on the new union, to

  celebrate for all the right reasons. Like any party, a few disgruntled uncles

  and aunties stayed away; they never spoke to anyone anyway. Some guests

  fought to sit at the head table, some were drama queens and sulked on a

  stool at the bar. But mostly, an extra chair could be pulled up and an extra

  place setting could be made, even at the head table.

  South Africa’s reinvention as a democracy saw everyone arrive in their

  finest high heels and aired-out suits. We found our seats, the music played

  and we clapped politely through the many speeches. Then came the part

  that should have crowned the occasion: the food. But in the new South

  Africa, there had not been enough to go around.

  The head table had grown bigger than we anticipated and they kept

  calling for more heaped plates. Some tables had received their food and

  they were tucking in. But other tables were still waiting. All the time

  fresh plates headed to the top table and the tables tucked in the corners

  stayed empty. And when their plates did arrive, the kitchen had done some

  creative plating-up and there was more garnish than meat. Those at these

  tables were going to eat what little had been offered but they were going

  to leave the party with hollow tummies, while the top table and those near

  to them were calling for another bottle of whisky.

  The Chinese South Africans felt they were among those who had not

  eaten well at the South African party. They knew others had gone hungrier,

  but they thought of themselves first. Someone had withheld the crispy

  duck from them and given them stir-fried bean curd instead.

  Under apartheid that was what they expected – they knew that even

  scraps were hard to come by – but the Constitution in the so-called

  rainbow nation promised that if they came to the party they would get a

  bite at something else. The Chinese still felt too black for some, too white

  for others and economically, socially and politically they were still pushed

  up against the margins.

  Years before, when there was a census in 1991, I was young, aggrieved

  and ignorant of computer data-capturing techniques. There was no box

  for Chinese where it asked for race. There was a box for white, black,

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  UFRIEDA HO

  Indian, coloured. I did not feel like I fitted in anywhere, so I drew in my

  own box and wrote ‘Chinese’. For so many official documents, for years I

  have had to tick the ‘other’ box, whatever that means.

  I looked at interviewee comments in Yoon Park’s A Matter of Honour.

  One comment reads: ‘I call myself a South African Chinese because I see

  myself as South African first and then Chinese.’

  The more accepted way to identify yourself is with your ethnic origin

  first and then your nationality, like African American or Chinese Canadian.

  But in South Africa the Chinese who are South African have inverted this

  deliberately to show where their identity and their allegiance lies. There are

  even those who call themselves ‘SABC I’ or ‘SABC 2’ or ‘SABC 3’. It stands

  for South African Born Chinese, first generation or second generation and

  so on. It is a deliberate and sure way to avoid confusion about where you

  place yourself. And, ironically, it is so aptly South African, playing on the

  names of the national broadcaster’s TV channels.

  Through the years I have caught myself saying, ‘I am a South African

  Chinese,’ also feeling that the soil under my feet is wh
ere home is and so

  I should state that bit first. I do not belong to an imagined motherland of

  China. Home for me is not the place where my grandmother remembered

  the pears to be so perfect they collapsed with tender juiciness in her mouth.

  She often told us this as she lamented the ‘dud’ pears that showed up

  again and again in our supermarkets. As a child, I did wonder about these

  scrumptious pears; they were like magical fruit. But eventually I realised

  that it was not about the pears or the homeland they were supposed to

  represent, but the lush fertility that springs from memory and nostalgia.

  Now I have lived long enough myself to remember some things to make

  comparisons and to reflect a little, too. I remember when things seemed

  like they were right, but only because a sinister order of being became our

  brainwashed normal. Shopping centres’ metal detectors were symbols of

  anxiety and fear of the terrorist that lurked behind every black skin. You

  would never see a black woman driver on the roads and the only Sotho we

  learnt was from the dubbed version of Spider-Man, Rabobi.

  At the same time, I feel duped and stupid that I believed the spin about

  equity, diversity and tolerance. Instead, we are in George Orwell’s Animal

  Farm. Every day more pigs are at the trough, there is more rewriting of

  the rules and more people are discarded like old horses sold off for cheap

  pet food.

  Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if my parents

  had headed off to another golden mountain. If they had ended up in

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  Melbourne or San Francisco, would they have worked off their label of

  migrant more quickly? Would they have been able to run a noodle den or

  a Chinese takeaway and not stress about having to find someone to front

  for them so they could register their business with a surname like ‘Ho’?

  When they saved enough money, would they have been able to move into

  a better neighbourhood without having to consult with neighbours first?

  Would I have been raised to say ‘I am an American’ or ‘I am Australian’,

  unlike in South Africa where I say ‘I am South African’ and then have to

  tag on an explanation.

  I am exasperated sometimes by having to present a CV of belonging

  before I can be considered South African, or African. If skin colour is the

  marker of belonging, how shallow and insincere, but also how convenient

  for those closest to the feeding troughs. I met an artist a few years ago.

  He was born in Cameroon, grew up in Paris and now lives in Switzerland.

  He speaks French and English mostly and declared, ‘I am an African.’

  There was no hesitation as he claimed his identity without a burden of

  explanation. But eyebrows are raised and there are derisive snickers when

  lighter-skinned South Africans or white people claim the same affirmation.

  They are born on this continent, they know where the Southern Cross will

  appear in the night sky. They even know the Southern Cross has other

  indigenous names, they know the time of year the rains will come and

  when the sardine run will hit the Durban coastline. Yet they do not belong,

  because their skin colour is not dark enough.

  Of course, my rational mind reminds me that our racialised present

  is a by-product of our history of segregation. Years of isolation from a

  bigger world picture made us all wear blinkers. A lack of access to quality

  education and the opportunity to cultivate critical thinking must be

  factored in. Then it is easy to understand why assumption, pigeonholing

  and stereotyping for this nation waving a frayed and faded rainbow flag is

  valid and logical to so many people. One day, far into the future, when the

  rainbow nation flag has faded sufficiently, maybe then we will find a truer

  colour, all blended into one colour, one unity for one country.

  The Chinese community in South Africa has not remained static either.

  Change and adaptation is the natural human condition, just like tweaking

  those public and private portrayals of themselves.

  The South African Chinese mostly fight off too close an association

  with newcomers who make up the recent waves of Chinese immigrants to

  arrive on Africa’s shores.

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  UFRIEDA HO

  People in the community repeatedly complain to me: ‘Please Ufrieda,

  you have to write in your articles that we are not like the daai lok jays.’

  It is a loaded term for the newcomers from the mainland, meant to imply

  someone who is uncouth and uncultured: the kind of person who does not

  lift her feet properly when she walks, shuffling instead; she talks with her

  mouth full and shouts across the street to get someone’s attention.

  ‘They are the ones who spit in the streets, they push you out of queues

  and they are so loud,’ I am told.

  Other people will tell me that they are pulled over by cops and the

  cops automatically start the ‘What can we do about this problem’ routine,

  which is a code for bribe money for a licence disc that is no longer valid or

  because a driver’s licence has been forgotten at home.

  ‘It is because “these people” always give bribes, just like they cannot

  be bothered to put up a curtain in their homes and they will just make do

  with stringing up a sheet across the window. Because of them, all Chinese

  people must suffer.’

  The local community has short memories. Just a generation ago they

  were bribing their way in and out of a system to which they did not belong.

  Only by tempting someone into the realm of illegality did they have some

  agency.

  I know the scale of things is different now. These days, the crimes where

  migrants are concerned make headlines. I also cringe when simply because

  of my skin colour people think I am somehow responsible for poaching

  rhinos, smuggling perlemoen, running brothels and prostitution rings

  with trafficked women and for flooding the markets with fong kongs, the

  knock-offs of every big brand out there.

  The newcomers do things differently. Georgie, the local Chinese fahfee

  man who showed me around his banks for my anthropology research, also

  told me this.

  ‘It is not like in your father’s day. There are no gentleman’s agreements

  about territories or banks. These people [the ju fah goungs from the new

  Chinese communities] use this.’ He made his hands into fists and crunched

  his face into a snarl.

  I know in my dad’s day ju fah goungs stuck to their banks; you did

  not go muscling in to other people’s territories. Betters were free to bet

  wherever they wanted to, and many played with a few ma-chinas in their

  areas every day, but you did not take over entire banks. If you did sell a

  bank, there would be a proper negotiation, a fee and a handshake at the

  end.

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  The newcomers do not abide by any of these established codes. They

  do not have to face anyone at a social gathering or a family do and they

  cannot be identified as so-and-so’s uncle or cousin. They exist outside the

  community web
and therefore outside the circle of common courtesy.

  ‘You should hear how some of these guys treat the betters; they shout

  at them and treat them like rubbish, they talk down to people. It is not the

  way to do things, you do not have to scream at people like that, especially

  not when you also rely on them to play your banks,’ said Georgie.

  He mentioned the armoured bakkies that are now used in the

  townships. The fahfee men do not take any chances and there is none of

  the ‘buy cooldrinks for everyone’ from my father’s day or even the attitude

  of Georgie whom I overheard offering more seedlings from his garden

  to one of his runners who had moved into a new Reconstruction and

  Development (RDP) house. This no-nonsense fahfee man who told me you

  had to be made of hard stuff to survive was talking about new sprouting

  flowers that he could share with his betters.

  When I have covered stories in the townships as a journalist I have seen

  the modern armoured trucks with their plated bodywork and windows

  that do not roll down. There is just a small circle cut into the opaque

  bulletproof material, just big enough to pass through a bag full of fahfee

  wallets and for a few curt words to be exchanged.

  ‘There was a really sad story we heard some time ago,’ Georgie told

  me.

  ‘One of these guys [the newcomers] had parked his armoured bakkie

  to do his round at the bank. When he finished he drove off as usual and

  returned at night for his evening round to be surrounded by cops. He

  thought he was being bust for the fahfee but he had actually killed a child

  earlier in the day. The kid had been playing around the car and he ran

  over the child without even knowing it because he was in such a tank of

  a car.’

  Georgie felt little kinship for the newcomers. He did not trust them.

  While the locals, even the fahfee men and the shopkeepers, worked to

  be accepted and to raise the generations of SABCs, the new migrants could

  not be bothered to be South African was what he felt. And why care when

  you are not a tiny minority, relying on what you are given because you

  can take all you can grab? They are part of the fiery breath of the mighty

  Chinese dragon and they are scorching the African soil as they like.

  In 2007, when I interviewed an official embassy spokesperson, the