Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

1.9Language and Community

After they migrated to the UK, black immigrant parents were raising their children English way and did not remind them about the place where they came from. Becoming new British citizens was essential to them, but first they had to come to terms with being black and the fact that their skin colour prevented them from being able to socialize with other minorities, let alone the British. However, there were rumours and beliefs that “all white women in England loved coloured men” (Phillips, Final Passage 190). Thus Leila did not understand white women, except as a threat to her, and was initially confused about how to behave towards her white neighbour Mary. But since they both constituted the poorest and lowest class of the British society, they overcame the race barrier and were getting along. Michael was socializing with his coloured colleagues and, led on by the stereotypical belief about white women falling for black men, was also mixing with white blonde women and cheating on his wife with them. Compared to Michael, Leila remained isolated, stayed at home with their son and avoided contact with other people.

Regarding the Chinese community, Fung indicates that it was a heterogeneous group that comprised

a variety of people from different places who came to the UK at different times, [...] from different backgrounds and with different standards of education. [...] They may have originated from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Viet Nam, Malaysia.

The Chinese immigrants employed in Chinese food businesses had only insufficient or almost no knowledge of English. Their contact with the members of the host society was limited and predetermined by their positions, and thus English language remained foreign to them. “The result was that those Chinese immigrants who worked extremely long hours in the kitchen remained detached and isolated from the new social and cultural environment” (Akilli, “Chinese”). The waiters, similarly as Chen when he worked in the Ho Ho restaurant, had to learn and speak English in order to communicate with the customers, but their knowledge of language was still limited to a few words and sentences. In contrast to West Indian immigrants, the Chinese were disadvantaged by the language barrier, which contributed to the fact that they were reluctant to interact with the British society other than on business terms.

Juhasz discusses the ways in which businesslike activities impact the issue of communal belonging. He states that “the behaviour and the interpersonal relations of young Chinese immigrants in London reflect[ed] their uncertain positions in the available, economic [...] exchange mechanisms.” They tried to overcome their isolation by entering into various transactions. As the migration of the Chinese group was economically motivated, commercial engagement influenced the actions and psychological condition of the characters. This was also Mr. Chen’s case when he ended up owing money to the Chinese Triad Society, which led to his death at the end of the novel (Juhasz). The Triad, or the Hung family, was a Chinese criminal organization based in Hong Kong and thought of itself as the strict conservator of Chinese culture and traditions in Britain. They characterized themselves as a “friendship association [that was] always pleased to help those who [knew] how to show respect” (Mo 67). They supposed that younger generation of Chinese were forgetful of the old ways and needed reminding of them, and so they played their “part in maintaining them overseas” (67).

Although the Chinese did not socialize with West Indians, regarding the coloured immigrant community in London as a whole, there was a spontaneous understanding between fellow foreigners and a sense of economic solidarity (Juhasz). Chen recognized “an unspoken complicity between himself and others like him, not necessarily of his race. A huge West Indian bus conductor regularly undercharged him on his morning journey to work” (Mo 1). Suprajitno suggests that the Chens moved in a very limited social circle, consisting exclusively of the Chinese. The family cultivated an ethnocentric attitude, they believed that a Chinese could only rely on another Chinese (79), and so their only friends, Mr. Lo and Mrs. Law, were also Chinese. The sense of personal responsibility to family and the value of mutual support held the Chen family together in Britain, in their new, yet still hostile home. Moreover, the Chens did not need to know or interact with the English, until they moved to the suburbs and opened their own business. Mo’s characters spoke in their native Cantonese to each other. Caused by the four-year isolation in their flat, Lily still did not speak English well enough to be able to express her thoughts and feelings when she had to deal with English customers face to face. She considered them ill-mannered and inferior, but could not verbalise her attitude.

She lacked not the vocabulary but the inflection which might request or admonish without causing offence. Her voice, so expressive and alive in her native Cantonese, became shrill, peremptory and strangely lifeless in its level pitching when she spoke English. She would have sounded hostile and nervous (Mo 135).

With establishing their own take away restaurant, there came change within the Chen family unit, Lily and Mui started working, speaking English and Chen “was giving his women the status of colleagues in the new enterprise” (105). Chen and the women were not in the superior and the inferior relationship anymore, they were equal.