Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (Mar 2011)

Move On, Move On! What it is to be Chinese in Australia today

  • Chek Ling

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5130/ccs.v3i1.1809
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 1

Abstract

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The Chinese are all right now. On the whole the mainstream population is quite relaxed about the Chinese presence in their midst. That of course was not the case for the 100 years to the end of WWII. And so it should come as no surprise that now and again old scars will resurface. Yet the Chinese have metamorphosed in the psyche of mainstream Australia: honorary whites like Li Cunxin, lionized professionals like Victor Chang, are neon-lit signs of this change. All the same, as a huayi (overseas Chinese) immigrant, my observations over the last 50 years have compelled me to conclude that there is one last gate for the present-day Chinese to walk through, and that it is time for the remaining rearguards of White Australia to consciously remove themselves from that gate.

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