THE COURAGE OF THE CULTURAL PIONEER

Being the first or amongst the first to do something such as visiting another country inhabited by people who are ethnically, linguistically and/or culturally different from you is not only a very courageous thing to do, but it can be potentially very dangerous.

Most of us will be au fait with the exploits of past explorers, whether it be Columbus 'discovering' the lands of the West Indies, the Spanish Conquistadors invading the Americas and dominating and destroying its native peoples, or Mongol warriors conquering and dominating the peoples of the Steppes of Asia, the Chinese emperors, before and after them, conquering and expanding their empires, or, in more recent times, the British, French, Belgian and Germans scrambling for the lands of Africa and the West Indies.

Those invasions were based on explorers desire to accumulate wealth and lands for themselves and their countries of origins, and their invasions were not meant to be friendly or promoting peaceful co-existence between people. Consequently, they were support by the military might of the respective countries.

What I am focusing on, in this post, is the challenge which can confronts ordinary, but still intrepid people who, leaving the comparative safety and security of living with people of their own ethnicity, religious and cultural beliefs, take the physical and psychological risk of moving to another country to live amongst people with whom, except for their common humanity, they might not have much in common.

In the past we have had men like the legendary Marco Polo, who sojourned into Asia and offered his service to Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler of China in the 13th Century, and in the 20th Century, men like Lawrence of Arabia. Probably like children, who do not want to stand out or be different from their peers, the lone explorer, adventurer or pioneer also does not want to stand out too much, but rather to 'blend in', as much as possible, with the local people. This can be a defensive tactic, as it can be dangerous to be 'diffeent' and in a minority of one or a few. 

Of course, when characteristics such as skin colour and physical traits associated with ones ethnicity is markedly different from the host country or people, then, 'blending in' does not readily lend itself to the situation. Still, although a person cannot - except inter-generationally - change their colour and ethnic-specific physical characteristics, the intrepid pioneer can go a long way towards being accepted by the host country, by learning their language. Language, I believe, encompasses and gives expression to a people's culture, and is probably the best or one of the best way of gaining a people's acceptance and feeling a part of 'their group.'

This takes me to the example of  Wayne Riley, a Black British sound engineer who went to live in China, and eventually married a Chinese woman and had a baby with her. Wayne found it very challenging gaining acceptance in China, which is not really surprising, as he would have been one of a comparatively very small number of black people in that vast country.  Now, of course China, like many other countries, will have people of different ethnic origins and skin shades, but those will have become accepted as the 'norm', at least for those Chines who are aware of them. 

Not so for the person/s who find themselves in Wayne's situation, and when he moved on to having a relationship with a Chinese woman, married her and had a child with her, that did not abate the prejudices, fears, suspicions and, yes,  probably revulsion of some Chinese. We can imagine some Chinese people who saw Wayne and his wife feeling that his wife was turning her back on or betraying her people, while Wayne might have been perceived as taking away a Chinese woman who could have been a good wife to a Chinese man; especially with their being a shortage of women in China.

Does this make Chinese living in China anymore prejudiced than people in other countries or continents, such as, eg, Africa? Probably not, once you have allowed for factors such as the fact that the Chinese had comparatively little exposure to free social interaction with black people, except for students and contract workers abroad. In countries such as Jamaica, where Chinese Jamaicans have been living for generations, the reaction to an African-Jamaican and a Chinese-Jamaican couple, or to a Chinese in Jamaica would, for reasons such as the specific and intertwined histories of both people in that country, be very different from what it would be like in China

And so we have a situation where it is to the intrepid pioneers such as Wayne Riley and others, that we owe a sense of gratitude for helping to breakdown the cultural, ethnic, linguistic and geographical barriers which prevents or impedes us from engaging and peacefully co-existing with our fellow humans, irrespective of ethnicity, culture or surmountable prejudices which are common to all groups.

It is only through mixing with and living with people of different cultures and ethnicity, and educating ourselves that we can become more enlightened and experience the the happiness of realizing our full potential as humans.

OWOHROD