The Changing World

The Changing World

After weeks of study and experience from this course, it turns out to be the time to thread the conceptions of transnational, cosmopolitan and immigration together to give a personal interpretation. To start with, I need to borrow the conception of transnational to include not only physical population flow like immigrants and tourists but as well as the capital flow and information flow such as foreign investment and the spread of western pop culture and Asian traditional cultures. This is crucial for the further discussion upon cosmopolitanism which is affected by every means of transnational behavior besides conventional immigration, especially for the countries which are not the popular destinations for immigrants.

The consensus on the merits of this transnational behavior is that it encourages the communication and recognition between each culture group and political regime. This blending of culture and population mostly will lead to the cosmopolitanization of a city or a country as the residents are actively or passively receiving the information from heterogeneous cultural and ethnic groups. For the popular immigration destination cities like Vancouver, New York, San Francisco, Sydney and Singapore, the cosmopolitan character is obviously contributed by the decades of significant inflow of Asian population. This impact of immigration on cosmopolitan of a city has been heatedly discussed but exception is held for quite a lot of Asian cities which are not the prime choice of foreign immigrants. Like Beijing and Shanghai which are considered cosmopolitan cities in the both Asian and global scale do not experience a large and mixing flow of foreign immigration relative to its large domestic population flow. The corresponding transnational activities are attributed to the influence of foreign capital investment and western pop culture and values. Thus even though there is not a significant number of foreign immigration residing in these cities which is large enough to form a social group or cultural group to shape the landscape, the economic consideration and cultural influence can take the role to build the cosmopolitan characters of the city as well. 2008 Beijing Olympics Games and 2010 Shanghai Expo are exactly two cases helping the cities to expose itself to a global culture and raise the consciousness of cosmopolitan among the residents or citizens by cultural exhibition and consumption. Actions are taken to transform the cities into more cosmopolitan like signboards of English and other languages are set up and English speaking is promoted among the officers and service industry like public transportation. This government-led cosmopolitan process is successful to raise the consciousness among the local residents and shape the landscape of the city to be more cosmopolitan but the impact rarely sustains to alter local residents' mindset after these mega events.

Other than immigrants, tourist is never a negligible force in transnational behaviors to shape the city landscape and contribute to the cosmopolitan of a city. These temporary visitors of the city provide the economic motivation for both government and local residents to get exposed to different cultures. Therefore compared to the mega events which introduce the new cultures to the cities and gain a global attention deliberately by government, tourism sometimes function more powerfully by integrating the current local cultures with a globalized standard in order to cater to the tourists in different backgrounds. This is more financially sustainable and bring a longer change to the soul of the city and mindsets of the citizens as well. For example, the holding of Youths Olympic Games (YOG) or Formula One give a blast to Singapore in a certain extent within a period but the planning and building of two mega casinos is really changing this city as promoting its cosmopolitan brand to the level of Dubai. Both the locals and government may proudly perceive the building of casinos as the milestone for Singapore to step into the list of cosmopolitan cities with New York, London and so on. However the change brought by tourists is still not that powerful enough to go beyond the superficial level of consumption to the level of the culture blending. As mentioned, it helps to alter the mindset of the citizens to embrace the fact of cosmopolitan of their home city but there will be few cases like how Hawaii altered by constant Japanese visitors inflow.

However, all these transnational flows from culture spread and tourists consumption lead the cities to be transformed to be alike. This is described by T.C. Chang as "somewhere" becomes "everywhere" and finally is "nowhere". The direct consequence of this homogenization process is that western cities are more Asian like and Asian cities are more westernized. China town and Asian towns for new Asian immigrants are built up in different European and American cities while Central Business District and modern opera houses are planned in Asian mega cities. When Thomas L. Friedman use the phrase "the world is flat" to visualize the globalization trend across the world, probably we can have "the world is alike" to describe the homogenization process under transnational behaviors. Nevertheless, when we scrutinize the nuance of the cities, we still can feel the difference on cosmopolitan pattern and immigration pattern of cities. There are always other factors playing to differentiate the cities and corresponding immigration. Sometimes seeking or establishing a pattern is crucial to theorize a phenomenon but in other cases we really appreciate the difference raised up which tell an individual story of different cities. This is how I rationalize our projects from a different perspective.

Back from other transnational behaviors on cosmopolitan, we realize that immigration is just one chapter of the whole transnational story. To investigate the difference of immigration and its impact on individual city, both macro and micro side of the story should be explored. The macro side of immigration tells about the social, political and macro economy backgrounds to rationalize the transnational flow. On one hand, the booming Asian economy and vulnerable market regulation result in a large group or class of wealthy from the early profitable stage of free market. However, the unmatchable education resource and life quality cannot fulfill their pursuit of better life and showing off of the wealth. Their worrisome over the loss of wealth due to the inconsistency of market policy as well as insecurity of the political environment give them sufficient reasons to transfer their gained property and make good use of them by immigrating to a more developed and well improved society. Besides the wealthy, talented with professions who try to seek a better pay off for their skills to improve their life quality also joins this wave of immigration. To summarize, the improvement of mobility and inequality of life opportunities and quality nurture the current Asian immigration towards popular destination countries like Canada, Australia and States. On the other hand, the booming economy of Asia is now the prime market in the world. People turn their sight from USA or Europe to Asia and economists keep prophesying that the future of the global economy is in Asia. Therefore even though the Asian wealthy are moving to the west but they keep their business here and western multinationals are also moving here with large numbers of expatriates residing in Asia for business. This economic and social difference is also reflected by the government policy about their attitude towards immigrant and talents which explains a lot in our project about the immigration in Singapore and Vancouver.

The micro side of immigration is more targeting on the personal story of individual immigrant. In our project, each interview with the Kerrisdale shop owner or Bukit Timah expats family gives a more personal perspective about immigration. I can feel their personal consideration and emotional change from their narration like the Orange Corner owner in Kerrisdale, David Wu's attitude change about his children's language choice. Sometimes it is more impressive and persuasive to hear from the interviewee to rationalize their choice to immigrate. For example, I quite agree with Linny Ye about how her 8 year old son gained the chance to be enrolled in baseball team without any previous experience which is very difficult and network-needed task. This is far more touching than the statistical figure about how Asian immigrants parents move to Canada for their next generation's education. To wrap up, the micro side gives individual difference on immigration pattern and reflect the genuine side of the immigration.

Till here, I am really glad our project's focus on these special immigrant groups' story including their reasoning to immigrate and their efforts and difficulties during this process. We are all impacted by the larger picture of the world but also it is the individual story and life experience encourage us to make the decision. The difference in both macro and micro sides of immigration contributes to the diversity and multiplicity of the city. Even though the debate about cosmopolitan and transnational which I have come up with in previous journals will continue, it is still fruitful for me to gain an insight about how the world is connected and how people change and adapt in their continuing move.

The Maze of Migrants worker

Inspired by the two videos and following discussion about Bangladesh migrant workers, I decided to work out the hidden relation between Singapore government which represents the labour import country and Bangladesh migrant workers as the foreign labour force as well as the relation with Singaporean residents including both citizens and permanent residents. On one hand, large numbers of Bangladesh migrant workers are pouring in to seek for a better paid job to support the family back in home and Singapore and Malaysia are still their land of gold and hope. The story and legend of success and getting rich are circulating in their network of information to attract male Bangladeshis. On the other hand, no lowest wage limit and loose regulation of Singapore government on agency give the tricking and other abusive cases opportunities and room to nurture.

In the first thread, people in Bangladesh which is a undeveloped countries which suffer from flood and poverty needs to look for a job to support the family. As a typical South Asian countries, Bangladesh is still a youth country which has a large proportion of labour force. In contrast, Singapore is suffering from the shortage of labour force to maintain it competitiveness and prosperous economy. The supply from Bangladesh just meets the large demand on the labour market and the better payoff and life quality lures many Bangladeshi to pay thousands of dollars for an entry to share the cake. So far, it sounds very normal. However, when Singapore government seeks for a cheap labour which will reduce the total cost of the products and service in Singapore to provide a very competitive price for theses in order to gain a market share and sustain its small but remarkable economy miracle. No lowest wage limit is then a political and economic method to achieve this target. The merits are for local residents in Singapore as they are benefit from the cheap goods which largely reduce the cost of local life and also give local business competitiveness in a global stage. The misery is left for the Bangladeshi migrant workers which suffers from the poor welfare and low wage to support both their daily need in Singapore and their Bangladeshi family. Form the other side, in order to meet the large demand of its labour market, Singapore government may feel reluctant to have a stringent labour import policy which poses restriction and order on the labour market. This induces a relatively loose regulation on the agency which imports the Bangladeshi workers and also the little attention on the migrants workers who reside here. Furthermore, it also gives Singapore government less intention to coopoerate with Bangladesh government as a labour export country. Both the attitude and policy of Singapore government partially gives rise to the current situation of Bangladeshi workers and discourage the future possible fundamental change.

Since the government is reluctant to take the lead to improve the current situation of Bangladeshi workers and regulation of the import, will Singaporean have the awareness and urge the government to make a change? Firstly, how miserable the migrant workers are does not really affect their life directly and they are even worried about the social security problem brought by the "low educated" migrant workers. They may show some sympathy to their miserable experience whenever there is some exposure from the press. The most common method to show their sympathy is the charity which does not really solve the problem from the root. In contrast, they are actually benefiting from the cheap labour even though most of them are unaware of it. This would defer their motivation to take concrete actions towards the government. Other than this, "pseudo" democracy in Singapore really discourages the Singaporean to pose impact on the government. No one wants to risk so much for the people which is not relevant to their own interest or may harm their interest. All of these create a vicious cycle which refuses the fundamental change and improvement. I really do not know it is a misery for Bangladeshi workers who travel thousands of miles to seek a hope but end up with threaten from load shakers and severer poverty.

The Splitting of a City

TC Chang's lecture about how the tourism changes the landscape of a city through the process of transworldment, enworldment, deworldment and unworldment by providing the economic driving force for local government and private sector. In the unworldment which is one of the potential consequence when the government plans the city and transform it in its own will and presumption.

Photoed on Main Street, on 28th May, 2010

It is almost impossible to comfort and please both local citizens and tourists with same tourist zone. The globalization transforms the place to nowhere which provides the local citizens a great sense of cosmopolitan and modernization. Meanwhile it gives the tourists a great access and quick adaption to the new travelling destination by equipping the zones with common tourist facilities and landscape ranging from chain hotel (Hilton), coffee shop (Starbucks) to fastfood restaurant (McDonald's ). However, the feeling of similarity and nowhere may hit and upset to the tourists who are seeking for the cultural uniqueness and difference through travelling. They are not expecting to see the opera house and skyscrapers which they have been fed up with in their home cities after dozens of hours flight. In contrast, to build the uniqueness of a city and differentiate them from other cities undergoing the same transformation, a city needs to be somewhere through preservation of its historic heritage sites and cultural sites. However, this may mean a mitigation of modernization and cosmopolitan to local residents if they consider the skyscraper, luxury hotels and shopping mall as the sign. This pleases the tourists but infuriate the locals.

Photoed on Granville Street on 21st May, 2010

The compromise and consensus does not always exist to resolve the conflicting needs for both locals and tourists. This give rise to the most common consequence - splitting of a city into tourist zone and local residential zone. In the tourist zone of a city, tourists sites like historic building, park and relevant tourism facilities such as hotels, high-end restaurants, local specialty shops are cramped. In Singapore, Chinatown, Marina Bay are probably classified as such tourist zones. It is so ironic that the travelling to a city now is constrained to a narrow area that is specially prepared and designed for tourists alone. This raises up the puzzle that as a tourist, is what we see in China town and Marina Bay really reflect the whole image of a real Singapore? Is what we perceives and experiences in these zones representing the my whole impression about Singapore or any other destination? This may become the situation that Paris is just about river Seine and avenue des champs-elyses, Westminster and Trafalgar Square toLondon and Manhattan Island to New York. Is it what we want the tourists to perceive about the city?

Photoed on 41st Avenue 29th May

If we label tourists like temporary heterogeneous force, immigrants are more permanent heterogeneous force to shape the landscape of a city. The heterogeneous here represents the different origins and natures of cultures between the visiting group and local native group. Compared to the tourist's force to change the landscape of a city by economic motivation, the change brought by immigrants are more cultural in addition to the basic living needs. However, this change is more conducted by immigrants rather than the leading by government. The lack of economic motivation and fear of objection and protesting from local residents obstructs the planning and construction of immigrant community. This is how Richmond and Surrey is constructed without obvious guidance from the Vancouver government. Only when they view it as tourist attraction, like China Town in both Singapore and Vancouver, the planning and investment will be poured in. Therefore immigrants community and zones are more organically and spontaneously founded and formed compared to the government delicate design for the tourist zone.

The Sorrow for New Millionaire immigrants

By chance I read a blog discussing about the new wave of Chinese millionaires immigration to Canada in these two years. He criticized that these new immigrants who immigrate to Canada through investment have lost the early Chinese immigrants’ spirit of working diligently and actively adapting to the local environment.

Photoed on 24th May, West Broadway

Relating it to the lecture given by David Ley on Tuesday, the new Asian immigrants, who are now more composed of investor immigrants than the skilled workers and professionals, changed the landscape and social structure of Vancouver and other Canadian cities in a unique way. The huge wealth accumulated in their home country gives them the mobility of not only travelling and also living permanently in a foreign land. However, the wealth also gives them less stress to force them to integrate into the local culture and society and power to change the neighbourhood and society in their willing. Instead of adapting to and integrating into the new world they have dreamed of, they build Monster house and continue their life style and life philosophy in Canada which differed little from that back in China. Instead of changing themselves into Canadian, they are transforming this North-American city into Asian style. This claim may be too exaggerated but after the trip to Richmond and Lougheed Town, how the new Asian immigrants have shaped this town really surprised me. Chinese malls in Richmond, Korean supermarket in Lougheed Town are just so Asian which some of them only sell Chinese or Korean brands there.

Photoed on 21st May, West Hastings Street

Here rises the question, if immigrants isolate themselves from the society and maintain the life style and social interaction under a contradictory context, do they consider themselves as, for example, more a Canadian or Chinese? This does not only create the confusion of identity for the immigrants but also tear the society and city into different parts rather than a united integrity. Sometimes multi-culture and immigrants can enrich a city by the addition of exotic and diverse elements but there is also a potential risk of chaos and tearing apart of the society and city landscape. Of course, these are built upon the assumption that new immigrants refuse to integrate into the new environment and try to create a protection zone around themselves which allow them to think and live in a comfortable way. Linking it to my personal experience of studying in Singapore, there are similar cases and phenomena for some PRC students. Their social circles are constrained within PRC peers and they only attend the activities with a domination of Chinese students. They live in a conventional way and avoid trying and understanding the local Singaporean life style. The only difference for the mini society of NUS and the society of Vancouver is that PRC students are not like new wealthy immigrants who have the power to change the physical structure as their willing, but both of them are quite similar in terms of impact on social structure.

Photoed on 21st May, East Vancouver

Therefore the refusal of integrating into new world for immigrants can be very destructive to both immigrants and the place. The integration of the immigrants is always a problem and important agenda for the local government and the booming of investor immigrants has pushed the problem into a worse situation since they are more independent in terms of finance and the needs of job. What they value is the life quality and political security other than the local culture and social issue. Canada for them is more a house of living rather than the home.

Cosmopolitan Vs. Multi-culture

After several days’ trip around Vancouver, from downtown to Metro city, from Fraser to China town, I was really impressive to find how diverse the ethnics and cultures are here in Vancouver. You can probably have the bubble tea originated from Taiwan, take your lunch at Phnom Penh restaurant in China Town, pass by the Vietnam neighborhood and order Indian style Chinese food for dinner. The experiences and transformation can be done within one day and I do not need to travel around the world to immerse in different cultures. When people read about this description, they probably will conclude that this city is very cosmopolitan since it is very culture-diverse or multi-cultural.

Chinese restaurant in China Town, photoed on 21st May, 2010

However, is multi-culture equal to cosmopolitanism? Are we able to use same criteria to scale the Cape Town or New Orleans as cosmopolitans?

Multi-culture is an existence state of culture which has been identified in many cities around the world. However, quite a few of them are resulted from historical reason like imperial occupation, mass migration due to black slave traffic or early mass migration. This contributes to the mixture of different cultures and ethnics in different continents where South Africa, Jamaica and Australian cities are some examples. I refer this kind of multi-culture to be static sometimes since the mixture of cultures has been done for a long time and the new hybrid culture may not be that embracing to any new culture. The state of multi-culture is not probable to adjust itself when facing new comers. This attitude towards a new culture and ethnical group is just opposed to the dynamic character of a cosmopolitan city which is more tolerant and embraced. This is what people expect from the cosmopolitan cities like New York and Paris.

Cambodian style exotic restaurant in China Town, photoed on 21st May, 2010

After the settling of a culture in a city, new problem is raised as in what forms the numerous cultures should be preserved or exist to contribute to the cosmopolitanism of a city. Should the cultures segregated from each other and preserve their authenticity or essence of each culture like Vancouver or Singapore where you can see the distinction of cultures? Or should they merged and integrated into a new hybrid culture like what happened in Jamaica and New Orleans where black cultures are far more distinguished from their origins? If the criterion of cosmopolitan about accessibility to different cultural experiences and knowledge holds, Jamaica and New Orleans are out of the cosmopolitan list even though their cultures are originated from multiple cultures but none of them are able to provide authentic knowledge and experience of their parental cultures.

Canadian Cactus cafe on Granville Street, photoed on 19th May, 2010

Then if a cosmopolitan city requires the coexistence and preservation of multi-culture, is any multi-culture composition fulfilling the cosmopolitan requirement? For example, Vancouver has a rich emigrant culture of early European, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and other Asian cultures while Singapore is composed of Indian, Chinese and Malay cultures. If we define the extent of cosmopolitan based on the region which the culture located, Singapore is more regional-politan which the diversity of cultures is more constrained in the South-East Asia and South Asia regions. Furthermore, its location and influence within that region makes Singapore more like a Southeast Asian hub rather than cosmopolitan city. In contrast, New York and Paris have absorbed the cultures and people from a more global scale like Middle East and Eastern Europe which make them seem to be more globalized. Or Vancouver which is located in North American concentrates numerous Asian cultures thousands miles from here may be considered to have more cosmopolitan characters than Singapore. This leads to the question about cosmopolitanism of a city or place, do location and composition of cultures matter? A consensus upon this question will shed some light the debate on which is more cosmopolitan between Vancouver and Singapore.

Southern American style BBQ house in downtown, photoed on 18th May, 2010

P.S.: the photos are less relevant to the content of this journal. I just want to present the diverse side and cosmopolitan side of Vancouver from the food culture side. That partially proves the consumption character of cosmopolitan.