Chapter 9 - by Intikhab Amir

‘Hyphenated reality, cultural mingling’

The more they live in their adopted country the second-generation immigrants seep deep into its culture. It deepens their parents’ predicament. They want to see their children have both the old and new ways, while the children think more in the new ways. The more the first-generation immigrants spend time in their new setting, the greater they realize the new reality of their life: changed identity. Once, with the passage of time, the second-generation immigrants integrate into the new culture, they dissent with the old ways. Their elders’ way of doing daily chores causes them inconvenience. They get unsettled with their elders’ behavior and attitude. ‘What would white people in Vancouver think of us?’ Choy’s grasps the predicament of immigrants, as over a period of time every immigrant shed part of past, realize the new reality of life, get mentally prepared to adopt the change and accept their new identity. ‘We are Canadian now, Chinese-Canadian – a hyphenated reality – that our parents could never accept.’

Their integration, a hyphenated reality, does not come without a price for the adopted country’s culture. It takes effect under a mutual bargain. As the immigrants agree to their hyphenated reality, the host culture undergoes influences from the immigrants’ culture. Places like Vancouver’s Chinatown serves as a confluence of two cultures. A cultural mingling takes place. A new culture of tolerance and coherence takes roots. Lifestyles of both, the natives and the immigrants, experience change accepting outside influences.

Chinese chimes, whose rattling noises might drive someone mad, get access to natives’ living rooms and drying rooms. Chinese ghost stories and superstition, bearing strong influences on Chinese life, do not confine only to Chinatown forever. They, too, become acceptable for the host culture, with the passage of time.