Having just written about Eurasians in Singapore during World War II, let us now take a look at how Eurasians come about – through interracial relationships.
I came across some anonymous poems that were published in the classical Chinese section of the journal Nam Phong in January of 1921 by someone who had been in London in 1919.
One of the poems is about seeing interracial couples on the streets.
The author explains that presently in Europe and America, anyone who is not white is a colored person. Colored men can not get married with white women, and in fact, this is banned in England.
However, the author continues, white women really do not like to be constrained. So there are some who sometimes still get married with colored men.
The author then notes that starting during the First World War, the British came to employ as many as two million soldiers and workers from India.
Of course some of these guys were smart and strong, so in their time off when they visited London, it was no uncommon to see a white woman and an Indian walking down the street hand in hand.
This, the author concluded, was a good strategy for “cherishing men from afar” (柔遠, nhu viễn). “Cherishing men from afar was a term” was a classical terms used in East Asia to describe the good treatment of tributary bearers to the central court of a dynasty by the emperor.
As for the poem, it roughly (or loosely) goes something like this:
London’s beauty, its free people,
The way they come together is a sight to behold.
It’s just so hard to comprehend,
That white wives now chose black husbands.
There is a book by Kimloan Vu-Hill called Coolies into Rebels: The Impact of World War I on French Indochina in which she talks about the experiences that the many Vietnamese who went to France during the war had. What Vu-Hill tries to demonstrate is that the experience of being in France probably transformed these men in many ways.
One transformation that we know took place (because the French authorities monitored it and kept records) is that Vietnamese men did not just stay content with looking at European women, but instead some dated, and some even married, European women.
So I’m not sure why this author expressed surprise at what he saw, for some of his compatriots had been doing the same thing just a year or so earlier in nearby France.
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Given the fact that there are several research and novels about interacial relations/marriages in colonies, this piece, which is about the same issue, but in the cosmopole, is very interesting! But I feel the question that you address at the end of the piece somehow ambiguous. It is not certain that he was not suprised at things that had been done by his his/her compatriots. Hearing about is quite different from seeing in person. However, your question make me interested in thinking more about what was probably in the mind of the people who saw the scene and there were probably discourses about contemporary interacial affairs that caused the surprised.
Anyway, coincidently, I have finished one novel Never the Twain (1928) by Abdoel Moeis, which is also about interacial marriages in Indonesia. As many surveys find out, white men can get married with non-white women without losing their privileges; but it was not the same for white women, who wanted to marry native men. it is very interesting with one detail in the novel saying that although the native man obtains european education, working for Dutch government and Eropean citizenship to get married with the white (mixed) woman he loves, he can not be accepted as white by the white community. His wife in the end says that he is still a filthy native. The explaination about such inescapable differentiation, is “feeling:” Feelings are feelings, one one knows that causes them. Why do dogs hate cats?…It is feeling… Feeling are the source of everything. It is not our place to ask where they come from” (174-175)
Ok, are you accusing me of being “ambiguous”? (gasp!!) Well yes, “ambiguous” is my middle name, so that’s ok. 🙂
After I wrote this I was thinking, “ok, this is an anonymous document written in classical Chinese. . . for all we know, this might have been written by someone from China. . .”
Yea, I don’t really know what this document tells us. Rather than paying any attention to what I wrote, I would follow up on what Kimloan Hill wrote and check the information about the people whom she documents. Those were Vietnamese men in relationships with white/French women.
That said, I’m glad this post at least stimulated your interest, ambiguous though it is.
Please forget the word “ambiguous.” I do not know what I meant by that word; it does not express my thinking with the last statement of the piece. What I want to say is that the surprised that the scene of the interracial couple caused is not strange; the interracial affair was and is “abnormal”; such kind of relationship always brings more more curiosity and surprise, to put generally, discussions. It is not to count on the fact that the relationship of a non-white man and a white woman was and is more “abnormal.” Therefore, the surpised that the poem implies, as your reading, is not a surprise.
I see what you mean. Yea, you’re right, and especially for that time.
I had never heard of Never the Twain until you just mentioned it. Looking it up, I immediately thought of Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s This Earth of Mankind in that they both connect complex (interracial) relationships to larger issues in society. Are you looking at other places besides Indonesia? I’m wondering if writings about interracial relationships were more common/popular in some places rather than others.
Marguerite Duras’ some works maybe are in this issue, aren’t they?
Yea, the film The Lover is about that for sure, but I seem to recall that that film was based on more than one of her novels.
funny thing is the “white” actress in the film is Eurasian herself (Viet-Chinese). Back in the day (maybe until this day) having an Eurasian wife was the “it” thing amongst the higher class society.
I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info.
And thanks for the George Carlin video!! I needed a boost, and that did it.
And yes I totally agree, “Being Irish isn’t a skill… it’s a f&%^ing genetic accident.” 🙂