Siying Zhou

at Pavement Projects, 122 Hoddle street, Collingwood, Australia

An installation: LED signs, wigs, bronze casting of chicken feet, a small white cabinet, a lamp pole, string, golden brick, mannequin hands, chopsticks, kangaroo balls, golden metal chains, Ctype print

Am I Chinese to you? Am I Chinese enough? How much Chinese is required from me by you?

Am I an Australian? How much extensive cultural identities should I inherit to be qualified as an Australian? 

How loud do I need to yell be relevant to the world? 

“Yaeh, Yeah, Yeh”

From your unresponsive and vacant stare, I know – I’ve just put a wall between us when I spoke  Mandarin at you. And I am banging on the wall now, but nothing can penetrate this wall. My words, meaning, humour, references and wit, evaporate into thin air, floating away with my fading voice. You get nothing. 

I am staring back at your hollow gaze.

I don’t want to speak these Mandarin words to you, to speak to you in a  language you know nothing about, but you insisted, you were curious. Or, were you being polite, or considerate, or were you only excavating my hidden exoticness? 

These words, unreceived and uncomprehended, are now hovering in limbo, waiting for you.  Free for you to pick up and, potentially,  mock. I might laugh with you and talk about how ridiculous and funny these Mandarin words sound. It has become second nature to put myself into your shoes, I have learned to get used to look at the language that I once spoke and the culture that I once lived in from a new cultural perspective.

Smooth the gap! Break the wall! It’s the time to throw some local slangs in my speech.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah”

Isn’t it a common desire for new arrivals to sound like the locals? To speak like them, to think like them, to live like them – one way of avoiding troubles. A principle of survival that has been passed down since colonial times. As a contemporary Chinese immigrant in Australia, I am searching for a reason to be here, to live on a stolen land. If I speak like those who have lived here for long time, perhaps, I could become close to this place. 

This is my hypothesis. 

But I am still not sure how I spell them.

"Sux my exotic fingers"

I heard you swear. If I were to swear the way you do, you would feel my anger. I would feel brave. Somehow, when I say your curse words, what is meant as an offensive gesture becomes a comic performance.

So, I pick up chopsticks and other fingers to help. 

Chicken feet is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. But for many non-Chinese, they can be intimidating to eat. At a dining table, chicken feet divide my friends. They are often, jokingly, used as a test of  bravery, a hurdle to qualify Chinese-ness. It is an invisible line separating the diners: Whoever dares to eat the feet and appreciates its tastiness deserves to be  Chinese, one of us. (a group drawn at a Chinese restaurant)

"The fringe fashion"

Over twenty years, I have observed that Chinese women like to have a fringe cut straight across, commonly referred to as ‘bangs’. I don’t understand the association between hairstyle and ethnicity, I simply accept it. If bangs are the marker of a Chinese woman, should I have one? If I don’t, does it mean I am not the typical Chinese woman?

“please put your tongue out"

Once I read that some Korean parents send their children to see cosmetic doctors to have their tongues operated into a shape that could help them speak better English. What a desperate and dramatic action! What an uncomfortable examination these children have to go through! 

When someone holds your tongue, you are silenced. 

It used to be considered a great social and political achievement to remain uncolonised by the British empire. News about tongue surgery reveals a common anxiety from the ‘third world’, where English colonies were never established.  People in those countries  have to face the consequence of being a minority in the world.  

What is this well-spoken English? Is speaking English all about the physical build of tongues? Of course not: English is a language. Language is a living thing and signifies a culture, a community, a tradition and a history. To speak English well, would mean to internalise the whole lot relating to this language. But when xenophobia, genocide, misogyny and inhumane policies are articulated in English, do I still want to become a part of this community?