Chinatown in Sydney

    I would like to write about week 3’s article, Kay J. Anderson’s “The Idea of Chinatown: The Power of Place and Institutional Practice in the Making of a Racial Category”, while including my own experiences.

    This article uses the case study in Vancouver and it describes how Chinatown in Vancouver was racialized and excluded in a way that created long-lasting stereotypes of Chinese people as unsanitary, heathen, morally corrupt, and even dangerous felt eerily. They were accused of unusual eating habits (unusual for the majority of people in Vancouver), using opium drugs, gambling, and so forth. I find it sad because opium was imported from India directed by the UK in the first place and caused Chinese people being addicted to it and they were judged by its usage in Vancouver. It was frustrating to read how institutional forces, such as local governments and media treated Chinese people when they imposed $500 which is a large amount of tax, disenfranchisement, and how journalists describe Chinese people.

    This article reminded me of the biases I’ve encountered and witnessed, in Sydney. Even though was before the pandemic, there seemed to be a certain amount of people who disliked Chinese people or maybe Asian people because many people cannot recognize the difference between people from other countries from East Asia. We may all look alike to them.

In 2019, I was living in Sydney and I distinctly remember some people expressing discomfort at the idea of going to Chinatown. The common reason seems to be its unsanitariness and strange eating habits. At the time, I didn’t fully grasp how much that mirrored historical views of Chinatowns across the world, but Anderson’s work made me reflect on this more deeply. Just like in Vancouver in the early 20th century, Sydney’s Chinatown seemed to carry a stigma, even though it was also a cultural hub that attracted many people. There was this strange duality where it was simultaneously admired for its food and shops, yet disparaged for being “unsanitary” or “sketchy.” I now realize these impressions were not just individual opinions but part of a broader, long-lasting pattern of racialization.

    After I left Sydney, I had a conversation with a Japanese person whom I have become friends there. She has still stayed in Sydney, and she told me about some unpleasant encounters she had in the period of during and post-COVID. Because COVID-19 originated in China, anti-Chinese sentiment became widespread, and unfortunately, she became a target too. People mistook her for Chinese, and she experienced verbal harassment and cold stares simply for being Asian. It didn’t matter that she was Japanese since many people lumped all East Asians together, unable (or unwilling) to differentiate. I felt this situation reflected how deeply ingrained the "foreign" status of Asians remains, especially when they’re perceived as a threat, whether for health reasons, as with COVID-19, or moral reasons, as described by Anderson in the context of Vancouver’s Chinatown. I think they gather in one location to keep themselves safer and sustain their culture because people outside may try to harm them and judge them.

    What stuck with me from Anderson’s book was the way negative racial stereotypes have persisted and adapted. The old accusations against Chinese people in Vancouver seem to have changed but are still alive today in new forms. In Sydney, I saw how the COVID-19 pandemic brought out those same fears about unsanitary. This time it was accusations about spreading disease. These stereotypes are quick to reappear in moments.

    It may not be a main point since this class is not mainly about gender, but in the article, the word feminine was used with inferior in a sentence. '…inferior, and comparatively speaking, feminine race' (p. 585) when describing the Chinese community, especially Chinese men. It feels relevant to some of my interactions in Australia and the US. I’ve had people ask me, rather directly, if I’m attracted to Asian men even though I know other races too because they assume Asian men are “feminine.” It’s always framed as something inferior like there’s something wrong with being more “feminine” or soft. I had thought Japanese men were regarded to be more masculine than other races (because I don’t know about other Asian men outside of Japan) but typical Japanese men in the past used to be rather violent in world wars, unfashionable, talk less, many of them practiced bushido, so it was surprising to me. I never knew if that was just their opinions or a more common view, but Anderson’s article made me realize that these views are powerful in shaping how different racial groups are perceived.

    Overall, reading this article taught me what I saw in Chinatown in Sydney not long time ago might have started like it did in Vancouver. These mistreatments are horrible but I think it is very important to challenge these assumptions from the inside that is eventually shaping public perception.