Another demonstration by the “Chinese people of France”
How cool is that name: “Chinois de France”, that is to say the “Chinese people of France”. Again this year, some associations decided to demonstrate, asking for more safety for Chinese/Asian people in Paris. Like last year, it’s all about the fact that they’re easy targets for thieves and other violent assaulters.
Rant: same as last year
Main reasons that are evoked in most articles and comments:
1) They usually carry a lot of cash money. They prefer using cash. Often read or implied afterwards: that’s because they have a lot of undeclared finances. [Note: geez. Might be true ^_^]
2) Most of them (who are being assaulted) are not legally staying in France, therefore they won’t go complain to the police [Note: oh and maybe that’s why they have so much cash ^_^]. Often read or implied afterwards: so why the hell are they asking for help now. Also it implies that a lot of these “Chinese people of France” are illegal immigrants. I’m still wondering if I should be considered a “Chinese people of France”, and same for members of my family with a valid permit, ‘cause if I am, then I don’t think that there are that many illegal Chinese, in proportion.
One thing that bugs me, other than these two huge generalizations and clichés, is the same as last year: somehow the comments tend to point out that “Chinese immigration is better than North-African immigration”. As a daughter of Chinese immigrants, I am nevertheless cringing at these words. Eek. What the hell. Worse thing is: I believe a lot of Chinese immigrants think that way, they think they are better than North African immigrants (or descendants of North African immigrants, it’s not very clear and it seems that no one wants to clarify that point. More on that later). Yikes.
One new thing that I might have missed last year (because I don’t usually read these kinds of websites/blogs): a small minority of people who think that Chinese, North Africans or Polish people are all the same: not French, and should be out of the country as soon as possible. They actually made me laugh.
So who are these “Chinois de France”?
Well actually Wikipedia has an answer for my previous question:
The Chinese diaspora in France consists of people of Chinese ancestry who were born in or immigrated to France
Nice! So I’m one of these people ^_^.
Slate.fr actually published an article (in French) about the French-Chinese community. Basically they say: it can’t be a real community, because it’s so diverse, between people from Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos (first immigration wave), and then people from various parts of China who don’t really share the same culture/language. I’m happy not to belong to a defined community, as my family came from Wenzhou but made a detour to Hong Kong before coming to France (yay). I proudly defend Cantonese language [as much as I can… ahem].
However, the demonstrations were organized by a group of Asian associations, without much information about them, except that their speaker’s name is Olivier Wang [note: woot, that’s gonna help me a lot]. It’s also very difficult to find any reliable website related to any of these associations. Man, it’s time to enter the 21st century guys, I know that in China Internet is not the best place to voice your opinions but hey, aren’t you living in France? -.-;
I found a youngsters’, third-culture-kids’ association, maybe I’ll try to contact them.
Conclusion: bah…
Anyway, this ain’t gonna be front page on any newspaper, and I don’t even know why I’m commenting this. Maybe part of me wants to go back to France and try to clean up all that mess. But another part of me is exhausted by just thinking of how much effort that would take. *sigh*
PS: It’s terrible how “Chinois de France” makes me think of “Français de souche”. Eek. Personnally I’d refer to my identity as “French-born Chinese”. But that’s only to explain to Japanese people what kind of strange person I am. ^_^
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lnchou posted this
