The global soul
People have been asking me if I miss Hong Kong. I've been saying that aside from the few important relationships I've developed, no. I agree it's a great place for young people to make money, travel through, eat and shop but I never really felt at home there.
In Pico Iyer's The Global Soul, he introduces the concept of what a "Global Soul" is by talking about himself. Iyer was born to Indian parents in England, moved to the U.S. when he was a boy, schooled in the U.K. and now lives in suburban Japan. He says:
"The country where people look like me is the one where I can't speak the language, the country where people sound like me is a place where I look highly alien, and the country where people live like me is the most foreign space of all. And though, when I was growing up, I was nearly always the only mongrel in my classroom or neighbourhood, now, when I look around, there are more and more people in a similar state, the children of blurred boundaries and global mobility."
I read this and immediately empathized with Iyer's experience. Although my parents are from Hong Kong, I never felt like I belonged there. It didn't help that I also looked "mixed" to the average Hong Konger, (OK, so I am actually a blend of Chinese, Malaysian and Indian,) and therefore a pre-determined outsider, regardless of how well I spoke Cantonese. But in Hong Kong, despite its claim to being a world class international city, there is a general unacceptance towards everyone that isn't a "real" Hong Konger, be it towards domestic helpers, mainland Chinese, and even, Caucasian expats (masked by its appreciation for expat money). There was always an "us vs. them" attitude that made me uncomfortable.
Iyer continues his exploration of the Global Soul as he tackles migration by living in LAX. He even devotes a chapter to the global marketplace by examining (where else?) Hong Kong. But exactly 101 pages after Iyer tells us of his confusion with space and identity, he describes Toronto as a New World city for Global Souls:
"For a Global Soul like me--for anyone born to several cultures--the challenge in the modern world is to find a city that speaks to as many of our homes as possible. The process of interacting with a place is a little like the rite of a cocktail party, at which, upon being introduced to a stranger, we cast about to find a name, a place, a person we might have in common: a friend is someone who can bring as many of our selves to the table as possible.
In that respect, Toronto felt entirely on my wavelength. It assembled many of the pasts that I knew, from Asia and America and Europe; yet unlike other such outposts of Empire--Adelaide, for example, or Durban--it offered the prospect of uniting all the fragments in a stained-glass whole. Canada could put all the pieces of our lives together, it told me (and others like me), without all the king's horses and all the king's men."
Devoting 55 pages to discuss multiculturalism through Toronto, Iyer reminds me of the main reason why I love this city. Yes, my heart flutters with excitement every time I open the listings pages of our weekly papers but it is the open acceptance of difference that has made me feel more and more at home here. There is no us vs. them. Here, everyone is an insider. It's not yet a national thing, as my negative experiences in London, ON proved, but a Toronto thing. Iyer acknowledges that Toronto's multicultural landscape is not perfect, but he agrees, as many of my fellow Torontonians will as well, what we have here is a beautiful thing.
[mp3] Air - People in the City
[mp3] Josh Rouse - Scenes from a Bar in Toronto
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