Scottish/ Chinese/ Whatever Identity
My interview with Rob Mackenzie has been picked up by poet Andrew Philip on his blog TongueFire in a post called “What is Scottish Poetry?”. There is a lively discussion in the comments to that post about Scottish identity, which I’ve added to, asking what would the identity of a Chinese poet writing in Scotland be.
Andrew has responded with some interesting points:
There’s a poem called “Young, Chinese and Scottish” written in the voice of a young, Chinese-Scottish woman by Kevin Macneil, an obviously male Gaelic and English-language writer. How’s that for complex identity politics!
Googling the poem (which I can’t find online), I’ve just come across an online essay “Infinite Diversity in New Scottish Writing”, by the Scottish-Pakistani writer Suhayl Saadi, who was born in Yorkshire. I’ve not read it, but it might well be enlightening.
Thanks to Andrew, we have some really juicy diversity writing to go and explore!
I am reminded of the early days when I first came to the UK. Back then, I clumped all white people from the UK together as “the English”. When speaking to an Irish/ Scottish/ Welsh person, I sometimes referred to them as “English” - imagine their outrage! It was then that I started to see the differences between the various tribes that make up the UK. It still fascinates me and I feel I have a lot to learn.
While in Slovenia, I was chatting to one of the other IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) delegates who was from Doncaster. She has a mild but noticeable northern accent. She recounted a rather disturbing story that shows the boundaries that exist even between the tribes of England, let alone between the English and Welsh/ Scottish etc.
At Uni, she heard about a party that a group of friends was going to. “Great,” she said to the host, “Where is it?” He replied in stiff, Southern tones, “You don’t have the right accent to come.”
Wow.
But to end on a lighter note, my colleague told another more amusing story of the North-South divide. She was setting up a meeting room in her company’s sleek offices in Soho recently. The technical assistant was an East End bloke who asked her if she wanted “sand” for the meeting.
“Sand?” She couldn’t work out why she’d need sand in the room.
“Yeah, d’you want me to set up the sand system?”
“Ah, sound!” She cried, understanding at last….
Photo: thanks to Hamed Sabir from flickr.com
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Fri, June 15th, 2007 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
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June 15th, 2007 at 10:11 am
*On Accents
CAN’T stand Scottish accent especially the broad Glaswegian variety, that of Wales and Ireland AND that spoken in certain parts of England like Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, and of course the Geordie and the Cockney.
An accent can be acquired or cultivated. I once heard a German speaking on
BBC Radio in impeccable English and with hardly a trace of German English. It
transpired he was the current Head of State of West Germany or of the unified country who had studied at Oxford in his youth.
Not too long ago I heard someone expressing a view on BBC Radio in London, can’t quite make out initially if male or female speaking, turned out to be New Zealand’s female prime minister. Sounded so very alien that I had some difficulty following what she was saying.
For me it’s Estuary English, I’m afraid, but I can just about live with the English spoken by most Americans barring possibly those from the Deep South. [TV chef] Julia Child’s English sounded so very British - like a middle class English lady speaking - that I’ve to remind myself she is actually an American, from Boston, Massachusetts.
June 15th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Oh I luuurve the Scottish accent, any Scotsman can get my attention by just speaking to me *grin*
Haha and what does it say about me I love the Southern accent too - Sam Elliot (look in IMDB) is an actor that has the perfect southern accent, it is the sexiest - let’s see, he was in Ghost Rider as the caretaker. He’s going to be in the Golden Compass aka Northern Lights but not sure if that is going to be a good film! Man, he may be old, but he’d still be my pin up.
Accents tell us a lot about each other, long live accents!
June 15th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Yang-May, the story your Northern English friend tells indicates the interaction of accent/region and that other British obsession: social class. An identifiably Northern English accent is often associated with the speaker being working class, which, depending on your class background, means it can either include or exclude you. The same goes for a number of different Scottish accents, but not all of them.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:47 am
PEY, I guess to get your attention I now have to
speak like Jock or Braveheart!
You haven’t been
reading the stuff
that I wrote, have you?
June 17th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Andrew, class and accent is so very much part of the British identity and plays such an important part in placing someone exactly in the hierarchy of things (the phrase “put them in their place comes to mind” and also “rising above their station”).
Pey, YeeTon - I find certain lilting Scottish accents just hypnotic. I used to listen to the shipping forecast just to be soothed by the gentle Scottish lilt of the mellow-voiced female broadcaster!
June 18th, 2007 at 10:24 am
“…. regard being had to their station in life…”, a reference
perhaps to prospective son-in-law on marriage, a contemplated testamentary disposition or proposed conferment of a beneficial interest in a trust?
June 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
“PEY, I guess to get your attention I now have to speak like Jock or Braveheart!”
YeeTon, I guess to get your attention - it might be worth considering when racism occurs. Does describing a race with reference to stock caricatures constitute racism?
If I was to talk about “squint-eyes” or “Karate Kid” to designate all Asian people, would that be any more racist than the terms you have used?
June 18th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
You raise an important issue, Rob. When I first came to the UK, I was unaware of the sensitivities of the different nations that make up the UK - and I think this still seems to be the case for many non-UK folk (and YeeTon may have made his remarks out of that context). It was only as I learnt more about the history of this country that I began to understand how the dominance of England over Wales, Scotland and Ireland at the same time united the country into one nation but also caused grief and conflict for the natives of those regions. (As I commented earlier, I ignorantly lumped all white UK people into the category “English” when I first came over here and only gradually came to learn about the differences.)
The negative stereotypes of the non-English nations making up the UK go back a long way into the history of these islands. Think of Jonathan Swift’s essay advocating the eating of Irish babies as a solution to the Irish famine and the Irish problem in one stroke - it was meant as a satire, I know, but it’s nonetheless horrendous in its bigotry.
These days, the tourist board and simplified cultural primers show us, for example, the Scotsman in the kilt and celebrates the haggis as the national food of Scotland. So when people think of Scotland, they tend to think of those handy shorthand cues - in the way that one of shorthand cues for Orientals culture is kung-fu or karate. The trouble, of course, with shorthand cues is that they can feed into negative stereotyping as well.
Thanks both Rob and YeeTon for bringing up this debate.
June 19th, 2007 at 12:11 am
* What Stock Caricature?
ROB, as you must know, Jock is a term commonly used to apply to a Scot just like Paddy is, an Irishman, for countless generations [and tacitly accepted] that I know for a fact where the first name is not known. Braveheart is actually the name of a Scot of times past, I believe, and maybe even a legendary hero.
Pey likes the Scots, a Scot’s or Scottish accent is likely to get her attention on her own admission, so for someone like me whose mother tongue is not Gaelic, I guess I must try to sound like a Scot to be able to get HER attention at all! Besides, isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery?
The likes or dislikes of an accent [much like whom we freely elect to associate as friends or not as the case may be] is entirely a matter for the individual and racism does NOT enter into the equation at all, much less arising by implication. Utterly absurd even to suggest either! Quite often an accent perpetrated by one party is or largely incomprehensible to the other party that absolutely defeats the purpose of holding the conversation in the first place!
[*Optional Read: Customer Service Call Centres
In these days of call centres being situated in different geographical regions of the UK and indeed elsewhere in the world (whether you like it or not), the customer is very hard done by when he is paying good money often by way of a premium phone call [charged at up to £1.50 per minute / USD $3.00, JFY, if you’re reading this too] talking about or explaining their problem(s) to a call centre worker who often doesn’t quite or fully comprehend the English the customer speaks and more importantly vice versa; conversations are thereby needlessly prolonged, stress levels up, pockets made lighter and all because of a FAILURE effectively to communicate in a medium commonly and easily UNDERSTOOD by all concerned. Not to mention the problem of a cultural divide for very many. And, of course, the outfits that run these call centres will be laughing all the way to the bank with ‘loadsamoney’. I will certainly not contribute to this unjust enrichment. I, for one, have long terminated all of my associations with such outfits where I have an alternative, for obvious reasons.]
BTW calling an Asian a “a karate kid ” per se does not cause offence [reflects more on user of the term, his imputed ignorance], calling him an ” Asiatic” is, however, deemed offensive or derogatory and may even breach UK race relation laws (much like calling a black a n_ _ _ _ _ in US that is completely unacceptable). AND last but not least, not all Asians have squint eyes just like not all Caucasians share a common trait or characteristic, whether good or bad.
June 19th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Hmm, YeeTon, I can see you probably didn’t mean to cause offence but the sensitivity seems to around the use of the name Jock. And indeed the use of the name Paddy to refer to an Irishman has the same sensitivity. While these names may have been used for generations by non-Irish and non-Scots to refer to the Irish or Scots, I believe they have tended to be used derogatorily and these days, people are much better at respecting those sensitivities than in previous generations. It is true that those words are also names of individual and when used to refer to those named people it is not considered offensive.
In the US, a similar example of an offensive term derived from a name is the derogative racist term “d*go” for a Hispanic person derived from the name Diego.
Maybe the Chinese equivalent might be Ching-Chong Chinaman? I was called Ching-Chong at school when I first came to England. It was said in a friendly way and, I think, because my class mates found it difficult to remember my name - which was unusual to their ears. I was the only Chinese girl in the whole school. After awhile it stopped when they became familiar with my name. They probably didn’t think they were being racist - it came out of their ignorance. I don’t remember being upset or insulted by it specifically - it fell into the same tumble of being upset and distress that came from being (i) the new girl (ii) far from home (iii) missing my family and (iv) having to eat horrible school food (now, THAT made me cry!).
June 19th, 2007 at 9:32 am
YeeTun
ROB, as you must know, Jock is a term commonly used to apply to a Scot just like Paddy is, an Irishman, for countless generations [and tacitly accepted] that I know for a fact where the first name is not known.
I’m amused that you are telling me what I “must know” with regard to my own culture. The term “Jock” is almost always used with an air of contempt. No Scot would call someone “Jock” if they didn’t know a person’s name. Only non-Scots. The equivalent would be me calling you “Chink” if I didn’t know your name. I’m not suggesting you intended to cause any offence. You have used the term out of ignorance. I accept that. But you’d do better to learn from your mistakes rather than seek to justify them. You should simply apologise and have done with it.
Braveheart is actually the name of a Scot of times past, I believe, and maybe even a legendary hero.
Actually, Braveheart is the name of a Hollywood movie in which an Australian, Mel Gibson, played the part of William Wallace and put on a Scots accent of a kind.
The likes or dislikes of an accent [much like whom we freely elect to associate as friends or not as the case may be] is entirely a matter for the individual and racism does NOT enter into the equation at all, much less arising by implication. Utterly absurd even to suggest either!
You ought to read what I wrote more carefully. I never suggested your likes or dislikes of an accent constituted racism – only the terms you used to describe those who speak in a Scottish accent.
BTW calling an Asian a “a karate kid ” per se does not cause offence [reflects more on user of the term, his imputed ignorance]
I agree with your point of imputed ignorance. But if I was to say, “Good to see all those Karate kids hanging about down at Fusion View,” I would be astonished if no one got annoyed at me.
AND last but not least, not all Asians have squint eyes just like not all Caucasians share a common trait or characteristic, whether good or bad.
I don’t think you have understood the point I was making. I was suggesting that “Jock” was as contemptuous a term as “squint eyes”. Neither is an acceptable form of address.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Just a word in defence of jonathan Swift, Yang-May Ooi. The man was Irish himself and therefore could not possibly be guilty of non-native stereotyping. In fact by his comments he was exposing others’ ignorance and lack of understanding. All through the famine of 1741, though he was ill himself, he played an active part in organising relief and aid for the victims.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Thanks, Shug, for that background info on Jonathan Swift. I had not been aware that he was Irish himself and the role he played in helping the Irish famine victims. I stand corrected!