“If Chinese people won’t accept me as what I am, then where am I going to belong?”

What does it mean to wrestle with being “British” and “Chinese” at the same time?

An evening in January 2019, Patrick Li and his British Chinese friends indulged in a common interest: to watch films and laugh at the plot’s absurdities.

The film that day, however, was Green Book (2019) starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali. Not so much a film to be mocked but one that instead captivated all of them. The theme was racism in the Deep South of the 1960s where The Negro Motorist Green Book guided African Americans to safe locations in finding “lodgings, businesses, and gas stations”.

As the film eased into the second half, reaching its emotional knife edge after a slew of racist acts, Dr. Don Shirley — an African American Jazz Pianist — explodes with a potent line: “If I am not black enough and if I am not white enough, then tell me: what am I?”

This line consumed Patrick. “I am going to remember that [movie] quote for the rest of my days.”

To find the significance of these 10 seconds we must rewind back a few years.

It was Havant College’s Induction Day. Patrick arrived and soon was directed to the classroom where his tutor group would be. A mix-up of the timetables had erased his name from the administration system. He was late. Two chairs, side by side, were the only ones vacant in the classroom. He took one of the seats.

Another girl walked in late, the same thing must have happened to her, he thought. She also sat down in the remaining seat next to him. Casual conversation ignited given their shoulder-to-shoulder proximity.

This was when he would meet his then-girlfriend from China.

Playing back the memory, pain layered his words. He discovered the bitter way that their cultures — British Chinese and mainland Chinese — was a major knock to the relationship.

“She never saw me as a proper Chinese person, using her terms,” he says. “A lot of the time she would say ‘I wouldn’t get it’”.

He told me of being culturally severed from his own ethnic group. “She said [to me] that you couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to be uprooted like that and taken away from your friends and placed in a school where you don’t even speak the language, full of strangers that bullied you for not speaking English.”

He was pushed out by the very person he thought he could trust. It was a Chinese problem and a Chinese problem only. He just would “not understand”. His intimacy with the Chinese mentality had somehow been diluted by the years of being who he was: a British Born Chinese who grew up in the south of England.

She complained of feeling homesick by being too far away from China. She always made apparent to him her longing for her Motherland. It was exacerbated by her inhibitions at expressing herself in English. He would try to sympathise with her situation, but she could not see how he could. He was not ethnically or culturally pure enough to comprehend how she felt in her longing for co-ethnic embrace

What transpired within this fledgling relationship shattered the life lessons passed on by his mother.

Both his parents were Chinese and while that would make him ethnically “pure”, the British context in which he lived his whole life was enough to mar their relationship. “It was so hard,” he says, “to be put in that situation where I would see Chinese people, but they wouldn’t see me as Chinese…”

His mother, Linda, instilled an attitude of ethnic solidarity in him during his childhood. “She would say, when I was young, if you see Chinese people always, if they are struggling, always stand in and help if you can.” To the present day in his mid 20s he still abides by this co-ethnic rule of upholding respectful, supportive comradeships.

He never experienced membership in his entire life within a native Chinese group. So, helping his fellow Chinese in their struggle never turned for him from theory into practice. But, when the chance came to enact his mother’s teachings, to remain still an outsider in a group where supposedly the colour of his skin and hair, eye shape, and the foreign tag of his surname would fit him neatly into the overall ethnic puzzle, saddened him.

In an effort to retain his Chinese identity in the mainstream environment of domineering Britishness, every Sunday his Mother sent attend a Chinese School in Portsmouth. These schools served the purpose for Chinese language (Cantonese and Mandarin) education; But, most important of all, it provided a “safe space” from racism in mainstream British society.

The environment allowed him to meet with people of similar or identical upbringings. His group of British Born Chinese he met from school accepted of each other. The inter-race conflict in their everyday hangouts was and still is not, an issue between them. Their friendship circle was a place where conversation was immune to the anxiety of how different he was, physically and culturally.

“We are just equal and it’s comfortable.”, he says, “I can be myself”.

In some situations, this invitation to comfortably be one’s own cultural self may take a whole new shape outside the bubble of co-ethnic friendship. Rather, one has to push their cultural identity a bit further to win over others.

Johnny Luk, Governor of the University for Creative Arts, in his political career felt his status as a candidate was not enough.

“When I was selected to run for Parliament, I had to be voted in into something called a Primary,” he says, “and 99% of the audience of hundreds of people were not Chinese. I was extremely acutely aware that I have to be not just a candidate, I have to be the best mind-blowing candidate they’ve ever met, to high hurdle over the barrier that in the 5-seconds they get to see me that I am an ‘other’”.

He was born in British-controlled Hong Kong in 1990 and he uses this narrative to weave into his own politics. Because of his father’s corporate job, senior Luk was in charge of European affairs, so in order to manage his work with a closer eye.

It wasn’t until when Johnny reached the age of 10, that they moved to the UK to re-unite with his older sister who was studying at boarding school. The aim was, in their parents’ eyes, to put the glue back into the cohesive supportive family.

His biggest regret, living in these three countries through his formative years, was that he never visited enough his birthland of Hong Kong. “I didn’t go at all during my teenage years. I basically lost my East Asian identity and [then] I became ashamed of it.”

Recently, the BLM protests against the death of George Floyd by US police forces excavated an impressed memory from his mind. Although he perceived to have lost his own sense of Hong Kong identity, something, on the contrary, made him aware of his East Asian identity, again.

That ‘something’ was on his desk. Post-it notes.

One day returning to his student accommodation at Durham University, he was shocked to see the state of his room. The whole place — windows, floor, furniture — was covered with a sea of fluorescent squares. On these squares, written words described the object or the place on which it was stuck.

To an observer, it looked like someone was learning the ropes of the English language and using this colourful technique as a study guide. The cleaners would catch a glimpse of this prank and, innocently, refer to him as the international student. “Why did they choose me to pull this prank?”, he reflects.

The sense of ‘otherness’ felt unbearable for him.

“I don’t like the idea that when I walk into a room, they think I am a Chinese student first. I constantly had to compete and explain that I was a British person. I think especially in London or in a big city, if you are Black or an Asian, you walk in they probably think you are British first and then talk about your heritage. But, for us [British Chinese] I think it is the other way around and we still need to normalise that. We haven’t yet and if we don’t, we will be vulnerable to other things like the coronavirus discrimination.”

Within the 5-seconds that people judge him as an ‘other’ at the Primary, he does more than just present himself as a candidate with polished policies to influence; he has to fight through the extra barrier of ethnic prejudice and discrimination. To just be on the same level as his opponent who ticked all the Tory boxes — Oxford educated, worked in business, trained in debating, even had his pregnant wife with him for moral support — he had to be so devoted and persuasive that the non-Chinese audiences will see past his ethnicity and, instead, embrace the validity of his political ideologies.

These feelings of inadequacy and ‘otherness’ crossed over and plagued many aspects of his life; they formed the backdrop of every day. It became more manageable as he matured, but he recalls similar ‘othering’ moments without a modicum of hesitation.

He hoped that Durham University would give him the opportunity to rekindle his connection with his other cultural side, other than his Britishness. But, to his disappointment, it didn’t meet his expectations. It wasn’t until he set foot back into Hong Kong that his identity and his place in the ethnic-cultural framework became apparent.

“There are a lot of dynamics in how I feel like I am an unattractive, inadequate human being [here in the UK]. I thought I looked like a freak. I have very Chinese-y hair. My hair follicles are physically different, and a lot of white guys would chase after my East Asian sister, but no one the other way. Then, I went to Hong Kong and realised ‘You know what? I am actually not that different from these guys… at least I am taller than some of them. That gave me a confidence boost.”

Contextualising his view of his Chinese identity again elevated his self-esteem in spite of everything he felt before. There are still, unfortunately, some differences with native Hong Kong-ers and in language abilities, their eating habits, and their attitude towards politics.

For example, when talking about politics involving China, his voice was uncertain and cautious. “I really struggled to relate with the Chinese Mainland population, if I am honest. Their nationalism is difficult for me given the fact that I have a lot of family in Taiwan and it is a very complicated issue for me.”

His relationship with his family is affected to a certain extent by his Western influence. He couldn’t foster a more personal and deep connection with his grandmother.

“I find it quite hard to speak to my grandma and I think that that is such a pity. I can almost speak to them, but I can never fully be on the same wavelength. It made me, in that contrast, very British, I am very Westernised in my outlook and my demeanour.”

He takes pride in his Britishness when competing in his favourite sport, rowing — not just amateur rowing but to the level of winning the British Championship in 2009 and racing at the Henley Royal Regatta. “There are few things more British than that”.

Living in Hong Kong is something many British Chinese fantasise about. Many brush off the idea that the housing space is too cramped compared to their current British homes, others warned of the current political turmoil as a reason for avoidance. But, for some, like British Chinese Jess Leung — an Accounting and Finance student at Cardiff University — even before all of the recent protests — had ventured East to explore further her Chinese identity.

“Every time I went back when I was younger with my family, I would fall in love with the place all over again,” she says. “I loved going back to see family I wouldn’t have seen in years, have food, the rush of the city, the confidence to speak my own [Cantonese] language. Even the small things like being able to buy clothing that fitted me just made it so much easier for me to imagine Hong Kong as a liveable place for me.”

After her holiday came to end, she returned to the UK only to be bawling in tears.

“It felt like I was having to leave a part of me,” she says. “That’s why I used to think I would love to move to Hong Kong one day and make it my home.”

Jess had taken the opportunity as part of her studies for a year abroad. Without hesitating, she picked Hong Kong as her destination. She believed the experience would give her a taster of what it would be like to fully embrace her Hong Kong identity entirely. “But once I got there, I realised everything seemed so different.”

She did exactly the same things she did on her previous trips. She spent time with distant relatives, ate the local cuisine, absorb the city’s energy, improved her Cantonese. But she couldn’t figure out the misaligned pulse that altered everything this time round.

Only when returning home after her studies abroad did the answer become obvious.

“I came back for Christmas to spend time with immediate family and it was then that I realised that the bridge that connected me to Hong Kong was my immediate family. It was because they were there that I could really find a meaning to being in Hong Kong. To me, Hong Kong is the country with the closest connection to my cultural identity, yet the people I choose to create a home with me were equally, if not, more important.”

Patrick, too, has moments where he embraces his Chinese identity. “I think I feel most Chinese when I am with my family and especially with my family in Hong Kong. I don’t get more Chinese than that.”

It’s non-stop Cantonese speaking once he is within Hong Kong boundaries. It’s almost impossible not to be embracing this other cultural side. “I really do enjoy my culture. I’ve got a small group of Asian friends at Imperial College, before the lockdown happened, we used to get together once a month and play mah-jong at my place. I love that part of my culture. It’s great fun”.

He believes that these days as a British Chinese man in his mid-twenties, he is growing fonder of his Chinese identity with equal measure to his Britishness. The clash his dual identity causes in both societies — UK and China — had balanced it so. Chinese people won’t accept him as Chinese; the White British force him into stereotyped bounds of being proficient in maths, having strict parents and reinforcing his ‘otherness’.

“I don’t feel culturally homeless but sometimes people can make me feel that way. The only time I feel homeless is when my own people reject me.”

An internal mantra still rings in him imitating Green Book’s screenplay: If Chinese people won’t accept me as what I am, then where am I going to belong?

This will stick with him for the rest of his days.