From Displacement To Hybridity—Chinese-Australian Identities In Birds Of Passage And After China

Brian Castro is an outstanding Australian writer who began to show his talents in literature in the1980s. Born in Hong Kong in1950, he came to Australia at the age of11. Because of his descents of Chinese, British and Portuguese and his experiences of immigration, there is always a concept of hybridity involved in his works.Birds of Passage (1983) is Castro’s first novel, recognized by critics as one of the earliest literature to describe the experience of Asian immigrants in Australia. It is composed of two clues, the hero of the one clue is Lo Yunshan who came to Australia during the "Gold Rush". Staying in Australia for7years, Lo has suffered from the discrimination from the white, however, he faces the cultural differences courageously, adapts himself to the new environment and thus constructs a hybridized identity of Chineseness and Australianness. The hero of the other clue is Seamus who lived in Australia in the1960s. He was Chinese born in Australia. However, he knew nothing about his parentage. Mainly because he didn’t know how to speak Chinese in spite of his Chinese appearance, he was isolated by both cultures of China and Australia. Although the times of Seamus life was120years apart from that of Lo Yunshan’s, Seamus still suffered from the pressure of living, confusion and depression. After discovering Lo Yunshan’s diary accidentally, Seamus had a conversation with Lo beyond time, and finally traces his Chineseness through the interaction of the two languages and the discussion between the two cultures.After China (1992) is Brian Castro’s another outstanding literature work, in which the author describes the immigration experiences of a Chinese architect, You Bok Mun, who came to Australia in the1980s. Due to his brilliant talents in architecture, he was approved and accepted by Australians. However, he was still confused by his identity problem on this strange land. Through the love between You and a White female writer as well as the luxurious hotel, the novel displays the protagonist’s process of searching for his cultural identity. The building, destruction and rebuilding of the hotel signify the making, collapsing and remaking of the architect, who feels dislocated at first, but lives courageously later and builds a hybridized cultural identity of Chinese and Australian at last.Although Birds of Passage and After China have attracted a lot of attention since their publication and meanwhile some scholars have pointed out that there reveals a challenge to the traditional concept of nationalism, the process of the protagonists’hybridized identity hasn’t been further discussed. In addition, the three protagonists lived in different times:Lo Yunshan during the "Gold Rush", Seamus of the1960s and You Bok Mun, the architect at the end of the20th century, each of them from different life experiences and time backgrounds. All of this leads to their different roads of hybridized cultural identity. Thus, it is of great meaning to probe into the process of identity rebuilding of the three protagonists in the two novels who have lived more than100years apart.This thesis attempts to analyze the identity hybridization of the three protagonists of different times in Australia from the perspective of Homi Bhabha’s theory of cultural hybridity, which elaborates the three steps of post-colonial culture: denial, communication and hybridity. This thesis argues that after about one century’s struggle and endeavors, Chinese people finally finds their places in Australia. Learning from the experiences, they understand that opposition is not good for their living and development, and the only right choice for them is to build a hybridized cultural identity in the third space beyond the two cultures through the interaction between Chinese culture and Australian culture. As the change of White Australia into multi-cultures, Australia has become more tolerant of people from different races and cultures. Besides, after making great efforts, Chinese people gradually gain independence and subjectivity and they are no longer "the Other" under the Western model but an important part of multi-cultural Australia.The whole thesis is divided into four parts. To begin with, the thesis introduces Brian Castro, his two works Birds of Passage and After China, and the thesis statement. And this part also includes the origin of the thesis, and a literature review relevant to this research thesis. In addition, this part provides an overview of the research objectives, approaches and the chapter organization.In chapter two, the thesis elaborates respectively the racial prejudice and cultural collision of the two protagonists in Birds of Passage, Lo Yunshan and Seamus O’Young, who live120years apart, and how do they, as marginal men, gradually realize a hybridized cultural identity and finally find their own place in Australia.Chapter three focuses on the process of the hybridized cultural identity of the protagonist in After China, You Bok Mun, who first set his feet on the Australian continent at the end of the20th century, and then felt dislocated and finally positioned himself again. Besides, in this chapter, there is also an analysis about how You Bok Mun’s cultural hybridized process is different from that of Lo Yunshan’s and Seamus’s.Based upon the analyses in the foregoing chapters, this thesis comes to a conclusion in chapter four that in Birds of Passage and After China the protagonists’ identity construction in Australia, the host country, is a process of displacement, alienation, self-discovery and finally cultural hybridity of Chineseness and Australianness.