The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy, is a remarkable effort put by the well-known scholar Wang Gungwu. It is a unique piece of work in a very important field of study. Wang Gungwu has presented this work with a wider outlook on the subject, considering a high level of internal facts. The book Chinese Overseas directly focuses on universal cultural dispersion. He recommends the latest overlooked background for understanding China and its past before 2000 years. This book links the Asian and European civilizations and the pressure linking culture assistance and incorporation. The work proves to be an established one, due to the qualitative work done in research and analysis. It has been accepted by the general mass for graceful writing and the ease to understand (Kuhn).
The book Chinese Overseas outlines the incidents of the overseas Chinese in the past millennium. In the sixteenth century relocation overseas had turned out to be a sound one and in the nineteenth and in the twentieth-century migration is being encouraged by fiscal prospects overseas and for political reasons, there are multitudes of migration. While the former refugee consisted mostly of traders settling abroad, the nineteenth-century migrants included manual workers, and during the twentieth century, many migrants were economic expels. In spite of the change, these migrants maintain their Chinese identity (Faure).
Never before has an effort been made to identify and analyze the underlying principles affecting migration in a wider sense. Nowadays the obstacle of migrants is to locate an option, to return to their native or to find innovative sovereignty in the world (Gungwu).
According to Wang Gungwu, the word diaspora also means both business insight and prosperity. The victories of the early Chinese merchants strike many parallel social achievements by the Jewish merchants. The Chinese merchants migrated to Southeast Asia a long time ago. There is a reality that the Chinese, wherever they go are adaptive to new conditions and are influenced to a great extent by the location. They get together for their festivals and celebrate all Chinese celebrations. They quite often search for a new business associate within their society as a matter of suitability, but in reality, the overseas communities have their own characters. They try to maintain their Chinese culture within their social relations. But those deeds are not vital to their reasons. They perform those acts for improving their standard of living. Wang Gungwu feels that people from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China are facing difficulty finding a job when compared to people who establish themselves as merchants. Chinese have gone through several bad experiences and they require specialized opportunities. Chinese ought to challenge openly with local specialists requires a different technique. For skillful jobs like doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc challenging strategies are required to withstand in the competitive field, whereas for those which require the least skills like waiters, cleaners, not much effort and the challenge is required. The countries give a lot of recognition to the workers from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for their dedication towards work and professional skills. They have an enhanced chance to get in. But being in a profession to have a better standard of living is again a difficult task. Finally, they will have to compromise with minor jobs to survive. According to Wang Gungwu when the term diaspora is used out of framework they must criticize it and point out reasonably be used for a political reason. If an idea is being critically used in a different way by other persons for some other purposes then they must certainly be exposed..Overseas Chinese recognize themselves with the country where they live. A Chinese in Thailand is a Thai. These are based on certain cultural attitudes which they possess. But such an attitude does not give them political recognition because the idea of political recognition and cultural recognition is considered to be two different factors in Asia.
In Europe, the view is different because people are used to only one main identity. All others are removed or separated from society. Even after rejecting all other identities, a Christian can only be Christian. This is the Christian attitude, but this doesn’t apply to Asia. Among the Chinese, people have different religions at a time. They are Buddhist and Taoist at the same time. If they are asked to be a Christian, they are willing for that provided they are allowed to remain with the other two religions at the same time. According to Wang Gungwu, this is why most of the Chinese do not convert to Christianity, due to its restricted nature. It is beside the Asian culture to be solely something.
A Chinese is always faithful and close to the mainland, which implies that they know their culture and know what to do to, where and when. It is because they are culturally Chinese however, many overseas Chinese though not brought up in a Chinese environment or in a Chinese way in China are ignorant of all these cultures. Some rarely know Chinese history. Wang Gungwu suggests that those Chinese of Chinese origin anywhere else in the world won’t have much to share in common. The only thing that they are able to share would be the language that is common. There is a challenge, which is the political leadership of any new nation. A leader always feels that a nation is challenged from the outside as the nation-building mission is not yet completed.
The real fact of innovation takes place in the technological field. It has almost changed the way the economy works. Within no time the Chinese are able to overlook many activities. These are the part of realities that exist around us. So, Wang Gungwu says that we can’t say that we are still in the middle of the action-building process. This is the factor that is essential to cope with the new condition. It is hopeless to imagine that the nation-state process taking place in Asia is safe. The Asian leaders have to do a harmonizing act. While merging their country’s uniqueness, at the same time they have to open up so that the local economy can take benefit from the global economy. It’s a challenge and it is for the nations to cope with the reliability and autonomy for economic survival (Asian Affairs Interview With Wang Gungwu).
Wang Gungwu outlines the fundamental principles and features that have affected the Chinese emigrants over the centuries. Many of the scattered Chinese look for an option to either settle down in a foreign country or go back to China. The author has detailed his argument with supportive examples of problems in finding a suitable job and the nature of Chinese in maintaining their culture and tradition by celebrating festivals and speaking their native language (Gungwu, Wang – Select Books).
Works Cited
Asian Affairs Interview With Wang Gungwu. .
Faure, David. Review of The Chinese Overseas. From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy. Web.
Gungwu, Wang. The Chinese Overseas. From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy.
Gungwu, Wang. (Select Books) The Chinese Overseas. From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy. Web.
Kuhn, Philip. A. Review of The Chinese Overseas. From Earthbound China to the Quest for Autonomy. Web.