I’ve been trying to write something about James Legge, one of the most important figures in opening up the cultural exchange between China and the West, a missionary from Huntly who went on to live in Hong Kong for 30 years and ended up being Oxford University’s first chair of Sinology. Along with Wang Tao, Legge translated monumental texts such as Confucius’ Analects and I Ching - The Book of Changes. Returning to Huntly for a time, Legge brought back several Chinese students, and Patrick Scott informed me they had lived across from the first church (current day Bakery on Old Road), deeming that part of town the unofficial “china town”.

A history of a place is not only found in the books, or modern day Wikipedia entries, but also in living the day to day experiences.

Earlier this week as I was walking home from ASDA one night, I was shouted at from speeding cruisers offering various offensive remarks and gestures. This wasn’t the first time, unfortunately, this has happened in Huntly, a place that is scenically gorgeous, and where I’ve never heard the word “chink” so many times in my life. This latest incident repeated itself three to four times, by at least two different cars in the ten minute span it took me to walk back to the square. What was curious was that there was actually another pedestrian, about a block ahead of me the whole way, who was also of Asian descent, a male, a local, and who didn’t get harassed, and who also took no notice of the harassment. 

I relayed this story the next day, and one response was that it’s unclear where racism begins and ends, as previous harassment has been about looking different and not from being around here, i.e. not being local. That in my books is what racism boils down to: prejudice towards difference based on guilty until proven innocent stereotypes and fear-driven judgement of difference.

But because there was another walker, it’s almost worse, as I’m once again reminded that women walking in public spaces appear open targets, especially alone, at night, and add on the issue of racial difference, and it’s just a shameful story to portray that I was denied the basic freedom to walk without being hassled.

It’s this denial of my basic freedom that has been burrowing concern, as without the psychological liberty to wander, I also lose the ability to think, to feel, to be recognized as a human being. The wariness of difference and strangers, and strangeness, manifests in different ways, and this lingering uncertainty of my own visibility that has left me stirred. Less about translating and understanding each other’s cultural differences, as Legge had so idealistically set out to accomplish in the late 19th century, here in the beginning of the 21st century, I am left uncertain to any progress made in how we engage with each other on a day to day basis.