Chop Suey - First Chapter Draft

 Intro

Chop Suey is an inauthentic Chinese dish. The exact origin is unknown but is believed to be an American Chinese invention, although it is also a commonly know dish in many other mixed Chinese cuisine. Also known as Tjap Tjoy in Surinamese-Chinese cuisine. Which is my heritage.

I identify with Chop Suey or Tjap Tjoy. I am also regarded as an inauthentic Chinese. In this study I will be exploring my background, my history, my experiences, as a Chinese person growing up in and with different cultures. The result of this thesis will be a series of photographs exploring the complicated relationship with my Chinese heritage.

The curiosity into exploring the complicated dynamic me and my family have with our Chinese heritage got fuelled last year. I got drawn exclusively to photographers from East-Asian descent and my recent work featured mostly Asian models. Last year I had the idea to use the rice hat — an object commonly used to ridicule Asians — take back the symbolism and turn it into a fashionable object. This was also an attempt to get closer to my Chinese heritage.

This tremendous urge to suddenly seek out that connection when I’ve never had this need before, made me think about my family’s inherited conflicted relationship to our ancestry and history of separating ourselves from China.

 Chapter 1: Background

Around 1920 my great-grandfather from my mother’s side left China to start a new life in Surinam. Back in China a lot of people were being oppressed by the imperial regime, which is why many of them decided to leave the country. My mother thinks he is from Yunan, because she recognised her grandfathers way of preparing and preserving food from a documentary about this district. She told me he spoke mostly Chinese and Surinamese, but he didn’t speak much.

Her mother — my grandmother — spoke Surinamese, Javanese and a little bit of Chinese. She only spoke Chinese when she was angry. Growing up in Surinam, however, it was much more important to integrate into the culture so this is when the Chinese language and culture faded into the background and Surinamese culture took over. My mom was unfortunately a product of my grandmother being raped by a Chinese man.

My mother understands Surinamese, but since she came to the Netherlands when she was 13, she doesn’t speak it much. Growing up in Surinam she says she always thought she looked like her cousins. “They were beautiful,” She says. “They were brown and had curly hair.” When she suddenly got called ‘Sneesie’ — a derogatory term for Chinese in Surinam — was the first time she knew she looked different.

“I wanted to be black! With curly hair! Half-Creole. Everyone in Surinam looked like that!” She got a perm because sleek hair wasn’t beautiful back