In light of the debates I have discussed concerning memory, history, fantasy, authenticity, their entanglements and their tensions, I want to performatively explore here the possibility of how concepts of transgenerational transmission of affective trauma can cross generations as well as space. This is an experiment in exploring memory and historical tensions, as well as putting to test some of the concepts of the unconscious I have discussed in this chapter so far; such as large group traumas that can lead to ‘chosen traumas’. In this experiment I will compare and contrast the translated memoir of Chong Chan-‐Yee and also my own
interviews with Bruce (see Chapter 3). 142
Chong Chan-‐Yee is an overseas Chinese born in Java in 1912 who moved to Hong Kong. Born into a fairly wealthy and prosperous family (his grandfather was a prosperous landowner and his father received a good education), Chong Chan-‐ Yee speaks from different life upbringings, but nonetheless reflects on the horrors that he saw during Japanese-‐occupied Hong Kong.
...when the Japanese first attacked Shanghai, I was forced to leave university and return to Java. It was then that I had a difficult time. I had adapted to city ways and wasn't suited to the rough life of the countryside.
It was for the reason that I left Java to come to Hong Kong. My two
142 Bruce’s story from Chapter 3: ‘Dad’s stories focussed on hard work on the farm and the value of being an honest man. Dad talked about his father, my grandfather, when grandpa was a sergeant in the Chinese army. One of the stories about honesty was when grandpa and his troops came across seven big buckets of gold bullion that the Japanese Imperial army stole from China during World War 2. The Japanese hid the gold in caves in the country-‐side. Dad said that grandpa reported the stolen gold bullion to the generals instead of stealing the gold for himself and his comrades. Grandpa showed some regret for his honesty. However, Dad said that grandma told grandpa he did the right thing in not stealing his country’s gold. Instead, those corrupt, greedy generals stole the gold to fill their own coffers. My grandparents believed that not only stealing the gold bullion was dishonest but also an evil act. They believed in karma. We call it ‘boa ying’ in Cantonese. Grandma thought that if grandpa stole the gold, a curse would come down on his family and all future generations of Chou’s.’
brothers left as well. My elder brother went to Singapore where he died during the occupation. I don't know under what circumstances. My younger brother followed me to Hong Kong. He was killed by Japanese soldiers. How did it happen? As you must know, it was the rule in those days that you had to kowtow if you passed a Japanese soldier on the street. My brother failed to do so. I don't know whether it was because he didn't see the soldiers, or whether he objected to the rule. Anyhow, they hit him and kicked him viciously. He died a few days later. They were very cruel, the Japanese soldiers.
I knew how cruel they could be. You see, I had been conscripted by the Japanese and forced into hard labour—building roads and digging tunnels. Then they found out that I was an educated man. It was obvious, even to them, that I was different. From the way I spoke and moved, they could tell that I was not the ordinary type. (Tisdall 1989: 100)
Chong also describes an interesting incident that parallels a story told by Bruce in Chapter 3, referring to the temptation of acquiring unattended gold. While there is no relationship between Chong and Bruce, it is of value to consider the different situations as described by different generations.
Let me tell you about one strange incident. It was towards the end of the war, and, as many things were being stolen, the Japanese ordered me to make an inventory of the storeroom at the YMCA. And do you know what I found there? I found a gold bar! It must have been left there by the British and I wanted to keep it. But my wife scolded me. She said: ‘Are you crazy? The Japanese are merciless. We have survived so long—why risk our lives now for a single bar of gold? Give it back to them.' I returned the bar. It was not an easy decision.
When the war ended, I found work as a printing broker. I had lots of customers. Later, when I had some capital, I established my own business: a packaging and printing factory. ...
In 1982 there were several days of heavy, continuous rainfall. My workshop was flooded. Everything I had—my machines, raw materials and finished products—were washed away in the river. I was not insured against natural disaster. Overnight I was destitute. (Tisdall 1989: 101)
While the stories between Bruce and Chong are obviously different and based in different circumstances, Chong's description of a similar temptation as what Bruce had described regarding the gold is representative of the discursive tone behind remembrances. On one hand, the next generation heard stories of survival with attached moral messages, affect and perhaps deposited representations of
tellings of these testimonies are wholly descriptive of survival, the experiences of surviving, and the traumas and tragedies of remembering a time of deep suffering. Compared to the narratives that Bruce and the postgeneration remembers being told (see also Chapter 3), there are few, if any moral lessons in these memoirs that these witnesses have found when asked by the interviewers to reveal their
personal stories. Instead, the stories presented are raw, authentic, and unrelenting in imagery.
However, this does not mean that affect does not stir. Instead, what is revealing through these stories, and certainly through Chong's memoir are
perhaps the very origins of unfulfilled desires, wishes and regrets that spawned a ghostly haunting. His mere mentioning about the gold bar and the difficulty of the decision is quite evident in his desire to instantly rediscover his lost wealth (that he had while growing up) and reclaim a life away from hardship. However, the need for survival from the Japanese (and after convincing from his wife) led to his giving up this wish and dream. Interestingly, Chong's wife in his account plays a significant role in his choice. And while it is unclear what role Bruce's grandma played with his grandpa, her being mentioned might suggest a role as well. However, to this end, this is mostly speculation.
But what is also interesting in Chong’s story is the narrative of brief capital success and then fall into subsequent poverty. While I must note my speculation here, I do, on a textual analytical level (since I did not interview him, translate the Chinese, nor compile the collection of unanalyzed memoirs), find it intriguing how Chong speaks about his brief success at starting a business before falling into poverty and destitution after experiencing a natural disaster. This is stated right after his description of the gold bar.
Chong's shift in tone in his testimony is clearly suggestive of his discontent with his life situation in poverty. Though he expressed appreciation for Helping Hands in providing him a space to live, his wish and desire for the life he previously had is transparent throughout his story. It is possible that beyond the desire to acquire wealth and escape poverty, a heavier self-‐expectation to succeed and be a success, not just for oneself, but also for the family and the legacy of the family as a migrant, is driving his disappointment. These migrant expectations are discussed more in the next section.
Lastly, these stories can be read on a collectively unconscious level. Recalling the importance of social links to Davoine and Gaudillière (2004) as well as Volkan et al. (2002), there is an intriguing generational social link that crosses generations. First, there is a large-‐group trauma that Chong lived through as an eyewitness, which was connected to a conflict with an oppressor. This was
specifically the Japanese oppression and occupation in Hong Kong, reflective of the larger Japanese dominance during the Anti-‐Japanese Resistance Wars. Bruce's grandpa was also an eyewitness to this Anti-‐Japanese War era. And there is strong reason to believe that the affective intensity of this historical era was enough to intertwine with the core identities of both Bruce's grandpa and Chong. For Bruce, his link to the Anti-‐Japanese resistance war was through stories-‐with-‐lessons told by his dad. This particular re-‐telling of the story was then, somehow passed down from Bruce's grandpa, the eyewitness, and to the son (Bruce's dad) as well. Thus, particular mental representations (Volkan et al. 2002) in Bruce's grandpa transmitted to his dad, and then to himself. From Bruce, his mental
representations are shared with a war more than half a century ago, along with the regrets, lessons, wishes and fears that became entangled with his grandfather and father’s own representations. These mental images and representations, though fragmented, are connected to those of Chong's own regrets, wishes, and dreams. Thus, Chong and Bruce are therefore socially linked. However, this link is not just through mental representation, but also to the traumatic ruptures of history (Davoine and Gaudillière 2004). Furthermore, there is some ‘unconscious’ choice made in Bruce's decisions to share this story of trauma, as well as Chong's decision to share that story of trauma, which further links them together across time, space, memory and history. Therefore, Chong and Bruce are connected within the diasporic unconscious, just as I now am gradually recovering my link to them as well, through my own search for histories and my complicity to my peers. I am also complicit and linked through my act of performance, within this very case study and personal journey to ‘feel’ and ‘imagine’ these haunted histories of fear, threat and war through my own fantasy, memories and feelings that resonate with their tale (Walkerine 2013; Davoine and Gaudillière 2004).
As I consider these stories, I am reminded also of how powerful it felt to first learn about the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong and its connection to my
familial narrative. It shocked me, but also, strangely, made a lot of my questions about my own cultural identity/identifications ‘make sense’, even as I continued to ask more questions. It felt as if the silences and spaces of my history that I could never quite understand but was seeking out began slowly uncovering. As such, I have always felt that I had (unconsciously) ‘chosen’ the traumatic incidents throughout the Anti-‐Japanese War as a dominant ancestral wound (which may perhaps be evident through this thesis). Thus, I too am linked to this trauma, and also socially linked to Bruce, his dad, his grandfather, and also to Mr. Chong in the most mysterious of ways, across chronological time, geographical space, and memory. This further demonstrates an important insight to what Cho (2008) describes as the assemblaged body, connected through a diasporic unconscious, and contributing to a diasporic vision of haunted histories.
Regardless of ‘truth’ behind the historical antecedents, the ‘facts’ are not so important as the affects that transmit powerfully and unconsciously throughout a collective diaspora, and what has become significant enough in our identities and identifications to be remembered. For some of my subject-‐peers, as well as myself, there are still many questions about the spaces and silences and forgettings
between the stories we know and do not know. And in this strange space, this is where memory and history entangle.
4.12 Conclusion
The fragments of memory through oral histories that I have included thus far are important in crystallizing a ‘way of seeing’ haunted histories. For the next
generation, Chapter 3 showed how memory of the past was visible, but often within the context of parents ‘teaching a lesson’. Thus, part of crystallizing a diasporic vision, or ‘seeing’ histories that have been forgotten, requires a reflexivity concerning how memory is produced. However, these familial
forgettings are further entangled with memory productions mediated by factors including the difficult question of ‘authenticity’ within the person remembering, as well as issues of nation-‐state power or ‘official memory productions’.
What stories are chosen for remembrance or chosen to be forgotten raises questions concerning why some historical ‘events’ remain attended to in lieu of others. These are key issues that raise urgent concerns about how diasporic vision can be ‘blocked’ or ‘obscured’ in its visibility due to mediations of fantasy as well as power. Certainly, these issues also raise questions about how the 2nd generation can make sense of mediated memory in their/our process of looking to see lost histories. I continue these discussions in more detail by considering the
transnational production of the moving image within Chapter 6.
In this chapter, I have attempted to stage an engagement with fragmented histories and memory, posing key tensions and questions concerning fantasy, authenticity, and affect. These tensions have been discussed in relationship to space, time, and (unconscious) ‘choosings’ of large-‐group traumas. I have also made these arguments while exploring how official rememberings and forgettings can influence the production of memory. In addition, I presented fragments of oral stories that reflected accounts from some of the key historical events I overviewed as a means of searching for the personal memories that agreed or differed from the stories often told in history texts. I also introduced Volkan's conceptualization of large-‐group traumas that can form into ‘chosen traumas’. This conceptualization has opened up questions and new possibilities concerning how significant
historical traumatic events can be spread not only within a familial generation transgenerationally, but across a whole collective of an ethnic group. Significantly, I have also discussed the importance of Davoine and Gaudillière’s (2004) argument concerning the importance of recovering social links that have been broken due to traumatic ruptures. Throughout this section, I have also written a case experiment to explore the possibilities of transgenerational haunting being ‘seen’ across time and space, memory and history and recovering broken links through imagining, immediacy and my resonance to common histories (see also Walkerdine 2013). In complementing oral stories, memoirs, historical analysis, and my own experiences, I have aimed to create and simultaneously stage an archive that sheds light to the remembered stories, narratives, and transgenerational transmission of affect that I analyzed in Chapter 3. Methodologically, I have attempted to continue crystallizing a diasporic montage by providing an archival ‘method of seeing’ the elusive and invisible transgenerational ghost through the histories presented, the
memoirs offered, and taking a critical historical consciousness approach that reflexively interrogates these histories, particularly, in relationship with official, personal, and collective memory. The discussion in the next chapter concerning migrant hauntings intersects with the discussions of this chapter as both tackle oral testimonies in reference to haunted histories. Thus, the next chapter
discusses these migrant hauntings, and also concludes with an analysis of artworks that consider the tensions between history, memory, fantasy and migration.
Specifically, I discuss the connection of myth and migration. This has contributed to the ways I have begun to understand the types of seeing necessary to situate the affects of transgenerational haunting in our Chinese-‐Canadian postgeneration.