Opinions

On identity and history

In print | April 16, 2009

As an American citizen born in Taiwan who calls Beijing home, living in America has stirred a feeling of displacement in me, despite the fact that locals in the place I call home will always instantly identify me as an outsider. To them I am a laowai, which means I am a foreigner; in this diverse country people may be slower to label, but after living in this country for the single longest period of time in my life I can pretty safely say I am a foreigner here too.

When I was in elementary school at the International School of Beijing, I had to do one of those individual projects that required us to put everything “about you” on one A4 sheet of colored paper. To represent my place of origin, I put the good old Star-Spangled Banner because I thought of myself as an American. Also, it was cool to be allied with the country that could bomb its way out of its problems.

When I had to do a similar assignment in middle school, however, I put a different red, white and blue flag up — the Taiwanese flag. It’s the one you won’t see at the Olympics because they (or we?) aren’t allowed to use it according to various international accords, each with Communist China’s fingerprints smeared all over them. It’s also the one you won’t see on my middle school project because our school’s security guards made the Taiwanese-identifying students take off our paper cutout of Taiwan’s flag.

I’m not entirely sure where my little project is now, but if I found it again, I know that in place of the Taiwanese flag there will be a United Nations flag instead.

Fortunately, they didn’t ask us to do another one of those in high school, but I think by then I would have put the red and yellow of the People’s Republic of China on my A4 paper.

And now? I have no idea what I would put now. Maybe those security guards had it right when they ripped off the Taiwanese flags and told us to replace them with United Nations flags. Not because I identify with that hapless joke of an organization, but because I am sure the feeling of displacement I often have is characteristic of many of my fellow international students.

I have no loyalties, or perhaps I have too many. In conversation I will readily go from defending the Chinese Communist Party to condemning them for slights they have committed against the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party of Taiwan — which is the party my family belongs to, and the party my family fought for in the Chinese Civil War. Which was, yes, between the Communists and the KMT.

That brings up a piece of family history that has monopolized my attention recently. In several universities’ libraries (sadly, not in any of the Tri-Co libraries) you will find books on the Chinese Civil War focused on a KMT general/secret service chief named Mao Renfeng. Many of these books have been written in the last two decades and originate from the mainland. Many of them call Mao Renfeng a murderer; one title translates to “Mao Renfeng: China’s most brutal killing machine.”

Mao Renfeng is, as you may have guessed, my grandfather, and I recall the silent anger my father displayed when he first read that last title. It is an anger I share as well, because these books, about a man who died 52 years ago, are, by and large, products of the winning side’s point of view — the P.R.C.’s point of view. Naturally, I feel defensive about this subject, and nobody is even pressing me on it.

When I discovered that there is a television series called “Mao Renfeng gives out the order to kill” and shared it with my mother, all she had to say was, “There are always different views to a matter.”

There are always different views to a matter — those words essentially encapsulate how I feel about my national identity and my family history alike. How do I reconcile the fact that my entire family is KMT and yet I am often willing to excuse the Communist party, the one that libels my grandfather so? There are always different views to a matter.

How do I exist as an American who feels foreign in America and who, at different points in time, put different flags on those A4 pieces of paper to identify myself? There are always different views to a matter.

Maybe it isn’t even necessary to reconcile or resolve or attempt to unite the different views of the matter. I am willing to see the different views all at once.

I am perhaps so separate from Mao Renfeng that I can embrace a lot of what he fought against, but I believe family history is too much a part of — admittedly, often an unrecognized or unwillingly recognized part of each of us — that it is impossible for me to distance myself completely from him either.

My story is in no way representative of an international student’s story. It’s not even representative of an ex-pat’s story. But this column is called Over International Borders, and thus far, I have failed to elucidate the possible internal discord of anybody who shares elements of my story, be it the smallest of similarities.

Obviously, there isn’t any crystal elucidation. And that, I think, makes the attempt to resolve and revisit much more gratifying. Because every time we look back at where we have come from, we find new elements that those who haven’t quite experienced life as an international kid could never discover. Ultimately, it adds another piece to a puzzle that never needs to be completed.

James is a first-year. You can reach him at jmao4@swarthmore.edu.