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Note One: The Immigrant
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Note One: The Immigrant
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The second anniversary of the Nineteen Countries’ withdrawal from International Incidents was celebrated in Halsten by three minutes of silence and a night of binge-drinking. But the binge-drinkers on that day, which was a Monday, confined themselves respectably to the central business districts and to the university grounds, and only mild cases of drunken tomfoolery were found on the streets of the nation.
I will always remember those three solemn minutes on that Monday morning. I saw him then — the boy I had been looking for and never hoped to see again. He appeared on the balcony of the building where the Collegian Lord Chancellor, the Earls and Margraves, and all the parliamentary members of the realm stood in frozen rigidity; and bewilderment was in his eyes. He ignored the nervous twitching of the Speaker’s pale hand, and came and leaned against the railing.
No one moved, but from the corners of their eyes they glared at him.
He stood looking out at the navy officers on the esplanade in front of us — neatly drawn up on their bulky physiques, swathed in blue and rigid as stones. They stood in the setting of a crowd as motley as the colours of their dress: brown Yohannesi, white Yohannesians, and non-Occidentals whose slanting eyes, small physiques and unattractive pale yellow skins according to the Yohannes First lead member of parliament Nickel Fallage stood awkwardly as symbols of recent immigration policy. At that moment there was a rush to greet their Emperor, Her Majesty Garnet Til Alexandros the Queen of Alexandria, as the Collegian Lord Chancellor walked past, the procession of dignitaries following behind, including the young boy, him.
But I stood still, overcome with emotion, hesitating to approach the one whom I long to see.
He was a reflection of my old self, slanting eyes and yellow skin. Just like him. Just like the Navy officers. For him, for me, it was once so simple. I feared my ancestors while loving them. I came to terms with exile on this continent of people who will never accept my kind as one of them. I loved my parents and admired my teachers, even if those same teachers always strapped my back every morning when I was young because I could not recite the Sixth Introductory Principles with a Yohannesian accent.
I was a believer, as they say. And if I had questioned my culture at all, it was only for fear that it might not be sufficiently perfect. As for my place in my adopted country, my aim in an ephemeral life — I had no doubts on that score. I was up to man, as Saint Maxtopia’s creation, to make the multiverse more welcoming. To bring redemption closer. Wasn’t this inordinately ambitious? So what?
For us, in the Diaspora, being a non-Occidental meant bridging the summit and the abyss — reconciling the worst torment with the most sublime hope. Imprisoned up there in divine time, Confucius could expect deliverance from none other than man below. Although a work of Saint Maxtopia, Confucius himself was not within Saint Maxtopia’s grasp; those who study it, and they alone, are qualified to interpret the Holy Book. Do these seem dangerous paradoxes? For us, life itself was a paradox, and danger did not frighten us who had immigrated into this land in search of a better life.
In those days I simply could not conceive of a non-Occidental who did not define himself through his culture.
Non-Occidentals had the choice: loyalty or denial. A lost, ‘fully integrated’ non-Occidental was a renegade, outlawed from the community of his kin, therefore despicable. And dangerous, for I had read enough on the subject to know how much distress was caused by renegades — the coons, those who turned their back on their own kin and sold out. They were to be found up there, standing with the boy and with the rulers of this land. They denounced open immigration of people who look, speak, and smell like us. They denounced our language; their own language. Their daughters had abandoned their lineage while their sons had resigned to be left out as second rate citizens. “It’s alright. So long as I am the House Chink, I can watch the plantation labourers outside.”
If you had asked any non-Occidental mother, fresh off the boat, what she most wished for her children, she would invariably have replied: “All I want is that they grow up to be good non-Occidentals.” What, precisely, did being a good non-Occidental mean? It meant taking upon oneself the entire destiny of the non-Occidental people; it meant living in more than one period, listening to more than one discourse, being part of more than one system; and it meant accepting the teachings of Confucius, and following his teaching to ‘keep calm and carry on in spite of discouragement and adversity.’
It meant summoning joy on festive days and being ready to accept discrimination quietly without complaining, knowing that eventually your hard work and perseverance will pay off.
I will always remember those three solemn minutes on that Monday morning. I saw him then — the boy I had been looking for and never hoped to see again. He appeared on the balcony of the building where the Collegian Lord Chancellor, the Earls and Margraves, and all the parliamentary members of the realm stood in frozen rigidity; and bewilderment was in his eyes. He ignored the nervous twitching of the Speaker’s pale hand, and came and leaned against the railing.
No one moved, but from the corners of their eyes they glared at him.
He stood looking out at the navy officers on the esplanade in front of us — neatly drawn up on their bulky physiques, swathed in blue and rigid as stones. They stood in the setting of a crowd as motley as the colours of their dress: brown Yohannesi, white Yohannesians, and non-Occidentals whose slanting eyes, small physiques and unattractive pale yellow skins according to the Yohannes First lead member of parliament Nickel Fallage stood awkwardly as symbols of recent immigration policy. At that moment there was a rush to greet their Emperor, Her Majesty Garnet Til Alexandros the Queen of Alexandria, as the Collegian Lord Chancellor walked past, the procession of dignitaries following behind, including the young boy, him.
But I stood still, overcome with emotion, hesitating to approach the one whom I long to see.
He was a reflection of my old self, slanting eyes and yellow skin. Just like him. Just like the Navy officers. For him, for me, it was once so simple. I feared my ancestors while loving them. I came to terms with exile on this continent of people who will never accept my kind as one of them. I loved my parents and admired my teachers, even if those same teachers always strapped my back every morning when I was young because I could not recite the Sixth Introductory Principles with a Yohannesian accent.
I was a believer, as they say. And if I had questioned my culture at all, it was only for fear that it might not be sufficiently perfect. As for my place in my adopted country, my aim in an ephemeral life — I had no doubts on that score. I was up to man, as Saint Maxtopia’s creation, to make the multiverse more welcoming. To bring redemption closer. Wasn’t this inordinately ambitious? So what?
For us, in the Diaspora, being a non-Occidental meant bridging the summit and the abyss — reconciling the worst torment with the most sublime hope. Imprisoned up there in divine time, Confucius could expect deliverance from none other than man below. Although a work of Saint Maxtopia, Confucius himself was not within Saint Maxtopia’s grasp; those who study it, and they alone, are qualified to interpret the Holy Book. Do these seem dangerous paradoxes? For us, life itself was a paradox, and danger did not frighten us who had immigrated into this land in search of a better life.
In those days I simply could not conceive of a non-Occidental who did not define himself through his culture.
Non-Occidentals had the choice: loyalty or denial. A lost, ‘fully integrated’ non-Occidental was a renegade, outlawed from the community of his kin, therefore despicable. And dangerous, for I had read enough on the subject to know how much distress was caused by renegades — the coons, those who turned their back on their own kin and sold out. They were to be found up there, standing with the boy and with the rulers of this land. They denounced open immigration of people who look, speak, and smell like us. They denounced our language; their own language. Their daughters had abandoned their lineage while their sons had resigned to be left out as second rate citizens. “It’s alright. So long as I am the House Chink, I can watch the plantation labourers outside.”
If you had asked any non-Occidental mother, fresh off the boat, what she most wished for her children, she would invariably have replied: “All I want is that they grow up to be good non-Occidentals.” What, precisely, did being a good non-Occidental mean? It meant taking upon oneself the entire destiny of the non-Occidental people; it meant living in more than one period, listening to more than one discourse, being part of more than one system; and it meant accepting the teachings of Confucius, and following his teaching to ‘keep calm and carry on in spite of discouragement and adversity.’
It meant summoning joy on festive days and being ready to accept discrimination quietly without complaining, knowing that eventually your hard work and perseverance will pay off.