Shuang Liu - Chinese Migrants Ageing in a Foreign Land: Home Beyond Culture

This book advances a new understanding of acculturation processes for older migrants, drawing on empirical data from migrants of Chinese heritage in Australia. It challenges the traditional models of acculturation, questions the conventional notion of integration, and analyses the fluid nature of cultural identities. Drawing on insights from environmental gerontology, intercultural communication and acculturation theories, it conceptualises ageing in a foreign land as a home-building process, highlighting the collective contributions of individual, community, social, cultural, technological and environmental factors to older migrants well-being. A consideration of what it means to age in place for those whose home is not necessarily attached to one place and one culture, this volume will appeal to social scientists with interests in ageing, gerontology, migration and diaspora, as well as those working in the fields of aged care policy.

Shuang Liu is Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Arts at The University Queensland, Australia. She is the author of Identity, Hybridity and Cultural Home: Chinese Migrants and Diaspora in Multicultural Societies and the lead author of Introducing Intercultural Communication: Global Cultures and Contexts .

Home Beyond Culture

Shuang Liu

First published 2020
by Routledge
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2020 Shuang Liu

The right of Shuang Liu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN: 978-0-367-21822-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-26632-4 (ebk)

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The impetus for writing this book emerged from my own experience as a Chinese migrant. Having lived in a foreign land for a significant part of my life, I have developed a profound interest in understanding how migrants develop a sense of home in a place where they may feel out of place due to cultural transition. When I first arrived in Brisbane for my job interview at The University of Queensland in 2000, I went to a coffee shop in the late afternoon before my interview. A young man at the counter greeted me with an enthusiastic, Gday, how can I help you? I asked for a coffee, to which he replied, Sure, but what coffee? I looked at the blackboard menu on the wall and was met with a dazzling list of coffee names that were all Greek to me. With something akin to performance anxiety, I quickly ordered, not entirely confident of what I was requesting. I ended up with a long black double shots which kept me awake till 2am the next morning. But I got the job!

Almost two decades have since passed, and I can now confidently order the right coffee in any caf without having to look at a menu. Furthermore, I have learned to use Australian slang, formed a circle of Australian friends, equipped myself with knowledge about Australian culture, adopted an Australian lifestyle, and participated in events that are deemed Australian, such as watching the annual ANZAC Day parade. As a result, people around me often comment that I am an Australian. While I am an Australian citizen and I call Australia home, however, I do not feel Australian in the sense of the colour of my skin, the food I love, the values I treasure, the customs I observe, and many other things that have been transferred to me through my upbringing and my heritage culture. This incongruity has been the source of my questions and desire to learn more about the cultural experience of others similar to myself. How should people like me develop a sense of home in a foreign land, when home is not associated with one culture?

Over the past decade, I have conducted research on first and second generation Chinese migrants in Australia, as well as what is known as the 1.5 generation those people who migrated before they were 14 years of age. I have been drawn to gaining an understanding of how migrants define who they are as cultural beings, how they negotiate identities when discrepancies occur between their self-defined identity and identities ascribed to them by others, and how they develop a sense of belonging in the foreign land that they presently call home.

This book documents my more recent research, with a particular focus on older Chinese migrants. Most of them are at the age of 65 years or over, including both long-term Chinese migrants who have grown old in Australia, and those who moved to Australia at an older age. The participants I interviewed have various job backgrounds, ranging from businesspeople, chefs, shop-owners, doctors, homemakers, and teachers, to mention just a few. Through their stories and the photographs they shared with me, I have learned that, for older migrants, ageing in a foreign land is a complex acculturation journey that involves continuous integration with place and people in the context of change in personal, social, cultural, physical, and environmental circumstances. Even for those who made their migration journey at a young age and have grown old in Australia, the issue of identity and belonging remains. The older they grow, the more salient the question of cultural roots becomes. The Chinese saying goes, Fallen leaves return to the roots. Because fallen leaves close to the roots of a tree will be absorbed by the soil and become part of the tree again, this saying is often used metaphorically to describe the nostalgic feeling and attachment to place of origin for those who live away from their homeland. For migrants, their heritage culture is always embedded in their lives, regardless of how long they have lived away from their homeland. The question of culture is not necessarily associated with one locality.

This book conceptualises ageing in a foreign land as a home-building process, drawing on theories of environmental gerontology, intercultural communication, and acculturation. It highlights the collective contributions of individual, community, social, cultural, technological and environmental factors to older migrants well-being. Developing a sense of home in a foreign land is a core component of migrants acculturation journey because cultural transition creates a feeling of being out of place. Attachment to home is especially significant for older people due to their reduced levels of mobility and social engagement, the longer time they spend at home compared to younger people, and the importance of place in preserving a sense of independence in older age and well-being. Internationally, public health policies promote ageing in place, defined as older people living in their own homes and communities for as long as possible, instead of living in institutional care facilities, because of the associated benefits of being at ones own home. Some of these benefits include independence, familiarity with the surrounding environment in the neighbourhood and community and closer contact with family and friends. While we recognise that ageing in place is conducive to well-being and that a sense of home is especially important to older people, what we lack is scholarly discussions engaging with older migrants who are ageing outside their homeland.