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Swapping Moon Cake for Apple Pie; interpretations of Asian American history and its utility in the European context Dr. Uy Hoang, EPH., Yale University OH,
East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, This
saying is part of the refrain from the poem “The Ballad of East and
West,” written in 1895 by Rudyard Kipling, considered to be the foremost
poet of empire, at the close of the Queen Victoria’s reign. The verse
forms part of a collection of writings that the bard wrote during his
travels to the US from the British colony of India, through Burma, China
and Japan in the early 1890s. It represents his attempt to come to a philosophical
understanding of the East, and in particular the two value systems of
the orient and the occident. The poem tells the story of two men, one
white, the other colored, who first fight each other then find reconciliation
through the depths of their souls, despite Unfortunately there have been precious few historical exemplars that can be held up as reflective of Kipling’s optimistic view of East-West relations. In fact the history of contact between the peoples of the East, to which I am referring to peoples inhabiting the lands east of the Indus River and the West have been littered with instances of friction, misunderstandings, mistrust and strife at least since the founding of modern Europe. In this essay I will posit that this legacy of discord and mistrust between the East and the West has its roots in the historically perpetuated myths and politically constructed stereotypes of both peoples and was exacerbated by the context within which the two peoples met. I will argue that by dissecting, examining and presenting the lives and experiences of the many Asians that have chosen to make their lives in America, the emerging fields of Asian American studies and Asian American history have challenged the traditional understandings of the peoples of the East, undermining some long held myths and stereotypes about the East, but also putting more clearly into focus new lines of friction. This
has formed part of the basis for a new framework for East-West relations,
one that links the peoples and cultures of the East and West, and specifically
America, closer together and will present the US with unique opportunities
and challenges that hitherto have not been seen in the relations between
the East and Europe. I shall argue that this reworking of Western consciousness
of the East will also deeply impact the peoples of Asian descent in Europe
including the Vietnamese. |