Oi queridos,
Vou postar em inglês pois esse foi um trabalho aqui da UVA. O objetivo era entrevistar um imigrante e procurar saber se ele se sente integrado, se existe discriminação, se ele se sente representado na midia holandesa, etc e tal.
Para mim a entrevista teve um Q de especial. O meu entrevistado foi Jason Chang, o irmão da Lily Chang, minha melhor amiga dos tempos de Holanda. A ultima vez que vi Jason ele ainda era um pequeno de 8 anos.
Espero que vocês gostem.
Beijos,
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A Citizen of the World
Having lived in the Netherlands for almost 14 years, 18 year-old Jason Chang feels neither Dutch nor Taiwanese.
“It’s a feeling that most people who live abroad for a long time get” – says 18 year-old Jason Chang as he tries hard to explain that he feels neither completely Dutch nor completely Taiwanese. “I belong to both at the same time but in different ways” – he adds as we chat at the café on the top floor of De Beijenkorf, the oldest and most famous department store in The Netherlands. Had I not known his siter Lily Chang so well, the maturity of Jason’s statement would have surprised me.
I first met the Changs in 1997 when my family moved to Rotterdam. Just like myself, Lily and Jason Chang attended the Wolfert Van Borselen international school and had moved to the Netherlands because of their father’s job. The decision to go to Rotterdam first came in 1993, when their father, Kevin Chang, was offered a position in the Dutch branch of Taiwanese Hannspree IT company.
Even though Lily and I have always kept in contact and we even met in London (where she lives now) in 2005, I had not heard much of Jason since I left the Netherlands back to Brazil in 1998. As I took the 9:26 Intercity train from Amsterdam to Rotterdam Central, memories of little Jason fighting with his older sister Lily on the 13 tram on the way to school flashed through my mind.
I still remember as if it had happened yesterday, 8 year-old Jason Chang shouting “I don’t want to learn Mandarin. Those things are a bunch of drawings together” and Lily’s angry reply “You have to! It’s OUR language, from OUR country. Don’t you understand?”. Apparently not. Our language, our culture, our country. None of that made any sense for the boy that at that point in time had lived half of his life in the country of tulips, windmills and wooden shoes.
As I talk about what I am doing back in the Netherlands and I tell him that there is this very famous Taiwanese writer in my class at UVA, Jason reveals that he couldn’t possibly know her because he has never learnt to read or write Mandarin. I hopelessly try to remind him of his complaints when he was a small child and go on to ask him whether he would still like to learn it. “Of course I would” – he says. “Somehow I regret not having learnt when I was young. It’s just now that I’m older that I realize how it important it is, but I’m sure I’ll find the time for it some day”.
When I ask him about his Dutch, Jason explains that even though he attends the international school, he has always taken Dutch as first langauge. “When I came here, I was just 4 years old, and for the whole of the first year I went to a regular Dutch Kindergarten, so I picked up the language before everybody else in my family”. His mom, Joanna Chang still has a hard time speaking it, but according to Jason she can understand everything.
At home, Jason, Kevin and Joanna still speak Mandarin and keep some of the traditions very alive. He tells me with great excitement that they had just celebrated the Chinese New Year’s a few days before this interview and that his mom had made all the typical food. “It’s very nice when we gather and have Taiwanese food. We can’t always do it because it’s not so easy to find the necessary ingredients to prepare it” – he says.
Jason explains that the family has been such a long time in the Netherlands that their cuisine became a mix of Dutch, Taiwanese and everything else one can imagine. He tells me that food was one of their worries when they first moved to Holland. “Can you believe my father brought two bags of ten kilos of rice when we moved here in 1993? He was so worried that my sister and I wouldn’t adapt to the food that my mom started slowly mixing the rice we buy here with the one my dad had brought from Taiwan” – he laughs.
Apart from the Taiwanese festivities, Jason’s family came to celebrate some of the Christian holidays too. According to him, they don’t celebrate Easter, but have been celebrating Christmas for quite a long time now. “For us, it does not mean the birth of Jesus Christ, it is rather a moment when the family gets together, exchange gifts and take the time to celebrate our happiness”. As Jason tells me very frankly, the Changs first came to celebrate Christmas because Lily and him wanted to get presents like all the other kids.
“When you live in a different country with a different culture for such a long time, you end up incorporating parts of it” – he says. In Jason’s perspective, it is important for anyone who lives or wishes to live in a different country to learn about their culture and their values. When I ask him about the new immigration and integration tests, Jason explains that one does not have to become Dutch to live here like the test requires, but he or she needs to, at least, understand and accept their way of doing things.
I ask Jason if he has ever felt left out from the society here and his “No” gives me hope of a more just world. However, Jason stresses that the way the Dutch percieve immigrants has changed a lot in the past years. “Since 9/11 and the killings of Pim Fortyn and Theo Van Gogh here in Holland, some groups, especially the muslims, have come across unwelcoming feelings” – he says.
According to him, Rita Verdonk and the last government are not the only ones to blame for the raise of xenophobia in the Netherlands. “The world media has also played an enourmous role on this, by portraying muslims and middle-easterns as terrorists. Do you remember any talk about integration when you lived here?” – he asks me. I try to recall but I don’t really. I remember some people at school telling me to watch out for some of the Moroccan kids, but I also remember being told to run away from the Dutch kids of the skinheads Rotterdam Terror gang.
Jason, who claims to watch mostly american programmes and the american news, explains that they way the islamic populations and islam were portrayed in American media had an effect, not too later, on the Dutch press. “Holland also has a large muslim population, but this did not seem to be a problem before 9/11. To me, it seems as if the newpapers and TV’s in The Netherlands have just copied the American formula, which fit just perfect after Van Gogh’s murderer” – he says.
Had Jason not been a Chang, I would hardly believe I could hear such comments from an 18 year-old boy. His sister Lily, was always the first in class, always made the best and most suitable comments and was always a good friend ready to give anyone the wisest advice. Like his sister in many aspects, Jason reveals to me that he also wishes to become a doctor and join Lily in the Imperial College of Medicine in London.
Although both his father and his sister are already Dutch citizens, Jason could not apply earlier because he was under age. “I hope to get the Dutch passport this year so I can then have a chance to go to school in England” – he says. As I say goodbye to Jason and walk towards Rotterdam Central station, I wonder how funny this world can be. A Taiwanese boy, who is now relying on the issuing of his Dutch passport so that he can emabark on a new adventure, in a new country, a new culture, but at least, with a language he is already able to speak.
