Identity Constructions Of Descendants From Chinese-German Families

Bicultural partnerships are on the raise because of an increasing number of migrants and foreigners,who stay in Germany for a longer period of time,as well as an enhanced mobility of individuals in the course of globalization.Children descending those bicultural cohabitation are often confronted with the two cultures of their parents during their personal development process.The confrontation level of those different cultures varies from family to family and can therefore have different consequences to the development of the child's identity which can differ from a crisis-ridden identity search in the adolescence phase to a consistent integration of both cultures in the identity construction.The topic of this master thesis which is analyzed using a literary analysis based on cultural studies is therefore the identity search of children descending from bicultural families.The term child is not restricted to the meaning of a human being during the phase of childhood,it also includes the meaning of a direct descendant and is therefore not bound to a specific age.Moreover,I need to point out that the object of this research paper is limited to families with a German parent and a Chinese or Taiwanese parent.By looking at the constitution of migrants and bicultural marriages in Germany,it becomes obvious that the amount of Chinese and Taiwanese is extremely small.Not only is the statistical percentage not much,but the public perception of Chinese and Taiwanese migrants is also very little.Virtually,Chinese and Taiwanese present an inconspicuous minority in Germany.This is also the reason why the researchers were not interested in Chinese living in Germany for a long time.Only since the beginning of the new millennium have scientists done research in this field,but so far just marginal covering only certainareas,such as Chinese students at German universities.Since the history of Chinese migration in Germany began in the 19th century,there is still a lot of research left to do to fully cover the topic.Even though there are many scientific papers that cover the cultural differences between Chinese and Germans,the focus is mainly on business communication.There is only one research paper covering the situation of bicultural families with a German and a Chinese spouse which is Yi-Mei Schwantes' dissertation completed in 2008.Similar to the long forgotten scientific research on this topic,the literary coverage of this topic did also not happen for a long time.Just recently,in the last 10 years,works of Chinese or Chinese-Germans were published in Germany.One of the few literary works of such category is the autobiographical novel of Dagmar Yu-Dembski about her German-Chinese family which was published in 2013.Exactly this novel will be used in this paper to analyze the cultural identity construction of the protagonist.The cultural and literary analysis of this novel aims to answer the question of which role cultural translation plays in the development of a cultural identity.Since there are hardly any literary papers that focus on the situation of Chinese or rather Chinese-Germans,it is fair to regard this paper as pioneering work.The contribution that this paper represents to the research of Chinese-German literature is therefore characterized by analyzing the role of cultural translation in the identity construction of the protagonist in the novel Chinaprinzessin.