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Continuum
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Foreign places, hybrid spaces

Nicholas Ng
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Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, Queensland, Australia Available online: 29 Jul 2011

To cite this article: Nicholas Ng (2011): Foreign places, hybrid spaces, Continuum, 25:4, 529-546 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2011.576752

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Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies Vol. 25, No. 4, August 2011, 529546

Foreign places, hybrid spaces

Nicholas Ng*
Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Queensland Conservatorium Grifth University, Queensland, Australia Acknowledging the often-noted efcacy of music in identity construction, I propose that music in the Chinese-Australian Catholic and Buddhist communities of Sydney is as much a tool in aid of social adhesion and personal identication as it is affected and constantly transformed by the trials of migrant life. The musical product, then, is something undeniably syncretic, hybrid, and malleable, with undercurrents of subcultural hegemony in the highly multi-national demography of the Sydney Chinese diaspora. Although mainly a contemporary study, this discourse extends back to the year 1954, a particular turning period in Chinese-Australian history due to two signicant events: the beginning of the end of the White Australia Policy, and the start of the gradual change in the Chinese population with the admittance of Chinese background migrants from various parts of Asia.

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Introduction In present-day Sydney, Chinese music may be experienced in the form of various transplanted genres and traditions, each representative and an intrinsic part of its respective sub-community. This paper focuses on the sacred repertories of the Australian Catholic Chinese Community (henceforth ACCC) and the Buddhas Light International Association, Sydney (henceforth BLIA SYD), a lay organization within the Fo Guang Shan (Buddhas Light Mountain) Order of Chan Buddhism. Working within the substrate of immigrant religion, I investigate the phenomenon of music as function in the two sub-communities. My inquiry addresses the central issue of identity through sound, language, and experience in a marginalized people grappling with change and cultural assimilation on the one hand, and rigid preservation and possible cultural stagnation on the other. Of the many Chinese organizations in Sydney, I chose the two sub-communities mentioned due to their considerable size, prominence, and visibility in the wider community. As an Asian Australian composer, I was rst drawn to investigate their music in the year 2000 out of an interest in the sacred music of the Chinese diaspora, and the striking core similarities that I seemed to share with the two sub-communities in the constant struggle with cultural and personal identication as an ethnic other in Australian society. I attribute this struggle to my largely white upbringing in semi-rural western Sydney, which was devoid of contact with most things Chinese. In the early stages of eldwork, I was made painfully aware of my culturally barren state by one of my interviewees, who pointed out that my limited Mandarin-speaking skills were of course attributed to my choice of friends (I did not at the time associate with many Chinese), and

*Email: n.ng@grifth.edu.au
ISSN 1030-4312 print/ISSN 1469-3666 online q 2011 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2011.576752 http://www.informaworld.com

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the fact that I was not in any way a consumer of Chinese contemporary culture. This remark made me realize my status as a largely subconscious passer of my home culture. By passer, I borrow a term coined by Suarez-Orozco (2000, 6) to describe the diasporan who avoids his or her home culture in the new homeland. Confronted by a disparaging sense of cultural loss, and without the mystical genetic hotline to my home culture (see Wong 1991, 26), I yearned to be a full insider of the sub-communities I was observing. It was this need for experiencing Chinese-ness that led me to the study of ChineseAustralian migrant sacred music. The hybrid nature of cultural life in the two subcommunities I chose ignited a certain spark that today inspires the performance of my own equally hybrid musical identity. This paper is the response of one who, like his interviewees, uses the medium of music to address his positioning as both local and global, and of a particular spiritual persuasion. It is anticipated that the following discussion, which concerns migrants of Chinese descent who have made Sydney their home, will help contemporary readers understand the intricate and multiplex nature of Australian society with its unbounded landscape of constantly negotiated musical identities.1 The historical and local scene In 1954, the Sydney Chinese Catholic Mission saw to the rst Mass exclusively celebrated by Sydneys Chinese Catholics in the vault of St Marys Cathedral, Archdiocese of Sydney (Sydney Chinese Catholic Community n.d.). As the number of religious brethren increased, this mission developed into the ACCC with the establishment of the Asiana Centre, Asheld in 1973, and an additional branch in Flemington in 1990. In the same year, 1990, the Fo Guang Shan Order ofcially opened Nan Tien Si (Temple of the Southern Skies) in Wollongong, the largest Chan Buddhist religious centre in the southern hemisphere. Nan Tien operates as the central place of worship for its various BLIA SYD suburban branches. Both religious communities grew out of a thriving Chinese population that began to escalate signicantly in the 1970s, during the twilight years of the White Australia Policy. This second wave of immigration was characterized by two types of new arrivals: refugee migrants from Indo-China since 1975 and economic migrants from Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s. The 1989 Tiananmen Square incident brought many intellectuals to Australia from the Chinese mainland (Shen 2001, 90) in addition to families who came to rusticate on vegetable farms on the outskirts of western Sydney (McGee 2000, personal communication). This third wave of migration included students and small families from Taiwan and various Southeast Asian countries. Unlike the nineteenth century sojourners of southern China, many of the later arrivals came to Australia with the intention of taking up Permanent Residency or citizenship. The most recent wave of immigration dramatically changed the nature of the Chinese composition in Sydney, in which one can now nd a colourful mix of Chinese dialects and languages. The ACCC and BLIA SYD are two of many religious institutions providing social cohesion for their respective congregations. Apart from spiritual guidance through customary religious rituals, both centres offer welfare services and function as social and recreational centres. The two sub-communities are almost exclusively Chinese social networks with the exception of a small number of non-Chinese members, who joined BLIA SYD in recent years as fans of Chinese culture and religion, or both. The two collectivities demonstrate that the Sydney Chinese community is no homogenous entity but consists of numerous groups with signicantly divergent histories. However, media reports on the Chinese community in Sydney suggest that Chinese Australians to this day

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endure the same sort of generalization suffered by other marginalized groups. The performance of music in the ACCC and BLIA SYD helps consolidate their collective identities as different from mainstream society, and from each other. This music is closely linked to the social and cultural practices of a people bound by shared beliefs, customs, and interests. Why religion? Religion, along with language and education, is an important ethnic identity marker in traditional anthropological scholarship (Bowie 2000; Glazier 1999; Edwards 1984; Lessa and Vogt 1972; Wild 1986). In ethno-specic religious centres, one is able to observe diasporans and analyse ways in which they have come to approach their post-migratory experiences. Religion, or religious re-creation (a term of my own invention), acts as a lens or substrate for examining the Chinese immigrant sense of identity, which is expressed in religious and musical practices. Here, where youre at (Ang 2001) is intimately connected to where you worship. Religion helps assuage the pain of disassociation in immigrant communities while combating the stressful feeling of loss and a confused sense of identity, a common side effect of the relocation process (see Mitchell 2003). There is certainly a strong sense of community established around ethno-specic temples and churches, which are vested as much with social importance as with religious signicance. These centres of worship help instil a sense of belonging and common future in the minds of migrants through religious activities that facilitate a number of ethno-specic interactions, through which we may view the expression of culture, self, and identity. It has been observed that non-white immigrant groups in America have a tendency for ethnic retention in their respective religious communities (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2007, 18; Warner and Wittner 1998). A similar migrant situation may be found in Australia. My eldwork in Sydney conrms that religion and recreation are arenas in which many Chinese migrants meet to resuscitate their otherwise stagnating cultural selves as part of the renegotiation process in their adopted homelands. Apart from providing religious services, the ACCC and BLIA SYD act as cultural centres where people participate in recreational activities from lessons on traditional Chinese instruments, to calligraphy and Tai Chi classes.2 Such ethnic events, according to primordialists and situationists such as Rosaldo (1988) and De Vos and Romanucci-Ross (1982), allow for the thickening of ethnic identity, during which time traditions are not simply repeated but selectively re-enacted (see Chan, K.B. 2005, 18). This is certainly the case in the ACCC and BLIA SYD, where regular weekly services and rituals to do with major life events (births, marriages, and deaths) are, from my observations, very well attended. In the words of Chan Kwok Bun, rituals not only explain but also afrm group, and therefore personal origin (2005, 18). Religious ritual in ethno-specic communities is an exclusive event involving people of the same ethnicity. Rituals help us understand where we are from (De Vos and Romanucci-Ross 1982) and just as importantly, where were at. In this way, religion is a key to the reproduction of culture and is a source of understanding for immigrants and their children coming to terms with their relocation (Warner 1998, 16). Immigrant congregations are great loci of change and not simply transplanted traditional institutions that meet the most current and urgent needs of the community (Smith 1978, 1178). Warner (1998, 20) maintains that a certain adaptability is required of religion in order for it to survive in the host country because of the importance of religion in the immigrant group,

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whose cultural situation is now drastically and irreversibly altered due to migration. This point is illustrated by the example of religious leaders addressing the challenges of migration by reinterpreting holy texts to make them more personal and relevant, so that ancient practices may assume a new function (Warner 1998, 20). While the ACCC and BLIA SYD offer solace and relief for migrants who strive to preserve old cultural ways, it proffers a potential way forward with the emphasis on the revitalization of the liturgy, music, and other cultural elements. Keen on preservation, the spiritual leaders of the two religions certainly continue to reinforce traditional ritual and socio-cultural practices that keep their respective congregations apart from other Chinese sub-communities and the dominant Anglo-Australian culture. For instance, the rite of Chinese ancestral veneration, once banned by the Vatican as a Chinese superstition, is in regular practice in the ACCC, while traditional dharma services promoting Chinese art and culture continue to take place in the BLIA SYD community. Conversely, with an assimilatory and evangelizing outlook, they have also implemented change with the aim of making their religions more accessible to outsiders through the introduction of a new, locally composed hymnody and the English language. Trilingual Masses in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English take place during important occasions in the ACCC; BLIA SYD prayers are always offered in English, then Mandarin, and many nonChinese from the wider community have been admitted as members in recent years. Meanwhile, liturgical literature is printed bilingually in both sub-communities which have been successful in introducing a substantial number of locally-composed English sacred songs. Social and cultural decisions, and conscious choices made in the preparation and performance of music and ritual, are effective in helping the diasporans involved adapt to living in an Australian context. Performing musical identities There is a general consensus that we can present how we want others to perceive us by our engagement in music (Hargreaves, Miell and MacDonald 2002, 1). The types of songs we might sing or play, for instance, help determine our very sense of self. According to Nicholas Cook, music is a popular medium through which people in any society can express a multiplicity of identities, whether as consumers or producers of music (1998, 5). In her examination of Judith Butlers theories of performativity, Vikki Bell writes that identity as a process is not simply a product of time and circumstance, but the effect of performance (1999, 3). Hence, identity is performable, not least due to the many selves with which the migrant is confronted as a result of the migration experience. Butler argues that identity comes into being only by virtue of, and during, performance. Amy Wai Yee Chan (2005, 31) nds that this theory subverts the paradigm we are, therefore, we perform and gravitates towards we perform to create who we are (italics original). In other words, music is both tool and outcome. On 15 May 2004, the members of BLIA SYD gathered for a public Buddhist wedding at Sydneys Darling Harbour. Taking place as part of the temples annual Buddha Birth Day Festival, the voices of the monastics blasted out into the incense-laden public airspace with the aid of microphones as they chanted, in Mandarin, the popular Boreboluomiduo Xinjing (Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra).3 Accompanying the chant were dharma instruments, used only in worship, such as the wooden sh to the left of the altar (when facing it),4 bell gong to the altars right,5 and a bell and drum set to the far right. Hand percussion including a small bell gong, gong, and cymbals were also played by the monastics as additional rhythmic accompaniment. The Heart Sutra, as it is

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commonly known, summarizes the entire Mahayana doctrine. Its performance practice, with nasal vocal timbres and traditional instruments, was developed in China and Taiwan (Chen 2005) and replicated in the diasporic BLIA community to allow worshippers to aurally, visually, and olfactorily revisit a sacred space from the homeland as they chant in time with their spiritual leaders (see Figure 1). It is a space that they have recreated for their descendents in Sydney. In the suburb of Asheld, I observed the Cantonese congregation of the ACCC on 8 November 2000 singing Huang Huang Sheng Ti (Down in Adoration Falling, also known as Tantum Ergo), a traditional Latin hymn sung in formal Cantonese (see Figure 2). Kneeling with his brethren in solemn reverence during a ritual known as Benediction, the elderly Father Pascal Chang swung the golden thurible, a sacramental object emitting vast quantities of Roman incense before the Monstrance, a metal vessel holding the Blessed Sacrament.6 The smoke produced is thought to rise to the heavens with the prayers, words, and intentions of all present. Directly in front of the priest was a large crucix anked on both sides by Chinese scriptural slogans printed on red paper. Much like the Heart Sutra, this particular ritual was developed in Hong Kong prior to its arrival in Australia. Its performance enables ACCC members continue to re-enact sacred scenes from the old country, where their foreign religion was domesticated into local Cantonese culture with the 1970s movement of enculturation,7 during which time that Huang Huang Sheng Ti was translated from Latin. Frederick Lau proposes that:
What we hear as music and view as entertainment on the surface is more than the sound itself. It is also a sonic signication that is saturated with profound cultural meaning and whose historical trajectories heighten its affective power [Radano and Bohlman 2000, 5]. Singing in this context takes one into a web of meanings that enacts cultural memories by way of sonic reference (Lau 2005, 162).

Figure 1. Boreboluomiduo Xinjing (Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra).

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Figure 2. Huang Huang Sheng Ti (Down in Adoration Falling).

These memories might include powerful images of the old homeland, or remembered places of signicance that function as symbolic anchors in diasporic communities (Gupta and Ferguson 1992, 11). Through such memories, people in imagined communities feel an attached sense of nationalism highlighted through music and song (Anderson 1991, 143 5). In the case of the ACCC and BLIA SYD, it is not so much state nationalism but a cultural nationalism that operates within diaspora and is built on the musical memories of diasporans. This musically promoted adhesive functions to unite people in worship through sacred song texts describing aspects of their belief system. These texts, if not liturgically or scripturally inspired, may refer to some matter of religiosity and even instil a sense of nostalgia for an imagined homeland (Anderson 2001; Singh 2001, 146). Figure 3 shows a hymn taken from an ACCC hymnal known as Zhong Guo Sheng Mu (Our Lady of China). Worship of Mary, the Mother of God as protectoress of China invokes and ascribes to a common myth, memory, and narrative, to borrow from Hall (1993, 394 5). There is a longstanding Roman Catholic devotion to the Blessed Virgin and a fundamental belief in her interaction with humankind through various apparitions that have occurred over the centuries. In 1900, decades before the years of enculturation, an apparition of Mary took place at Donglu, China. This was followed by the dedication of the Chinese people to Our Lady of China in 1924 using a Vatican-approved icon of the Blessed Virgin with the infant Jesus, both in Imperial Chinese robes (Aradi 2010). The tradition of singing the hymn Zhong Guo Sheng Mu was already in place in Hong Kong before the formation of the ACCC in Sydney. It is still sung during Mass, and after the ritual accompanied by Huang Huang Sheng Ti. Marcello Sorce Keller further elucidates the connection between music and identity in the observation that stored in each individuals memory is a personal collection of sounds. This is the foundation of ones identity a sound library, as it were, and a work in progress that is recalled at will or through circumstance, and hence actively reshaped by various factors over time (see Sorce Keller n.d.). In much the same way as the families of

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Figure 3. Zhong Guo Sheng Mu (Our Lady of China).

Elionne Beldens ethnography on the expatriate Taiwanese of Houston (1997, 5 6), the families in the ACCC and BLIA SYD do not necessarily relate to other Chinese in their neighbourhoods, or to other diasporic communities in the way they correlate their immediate pasts with their daily lives. This element of difference, conjured through memory, has signicant impact on their sense of identity and relates to a social construction of collective memory, of which music is a critical aspect (Halbwachs 1939, 136). It is with this collective memory that music is woven into the symbolic universe and stock of shared knowledge that informs individual experiences (Schutz 1964, 162 4; Berger and Luckmann 1967, 102 3). ACCC and BLIA SYD music cannot be examined in isolation from language in the individual and shared experiences, all of which take part in the performance of musical identities, whether as performers or listeners. For these diasporans, music is very much dependent on language, for theirs is a sacred vocal genre. Out of the confusion of Chinese tongues there is within each community a mixture of English, Cantonese, and Mandarin for conducting rituals, singing sacred songs, and where needed, general conversation.8 Although this study does not explore concomitant linguistic issues in any technical depth,

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it can be seen that the highly localized combination of language and music in the ACCC and BLIA SYD helps migrants communicate their thoughts, expressions, and feelings during an ethno-specic religious event. For most of my Chinese-speaking consultants, English, or more specically Australian English, is a new post-migratory tongue that has crept into aspects of worship and song. Rather than reacting against the introduction of an outsider language (English) as a potential threat to their identity, parishioners and devotees have embraced English and used it to their advantage in catering for the younger generation, and for making their culture intelligible to curious non-Chinese observers. Moving to carefully pre-choreographed gestures inspired by the song text, performers and audience members alike regularly sing the words and move to the music of I Love the Starry-Sky at Night-time, a popular English hit amongst both young and old of BLIA SYD. This hymn was composed and orchestrated by UK composer Alfonso Esposito in 2004 and has become incredibly popular in all English-speaking parts of the Fo Guang Shan world. It is clear that many participants have memorized the hand gestures, which literally reect the meaning of the text. For instance, both index ngers and thumbs are joined with palms facing inwards while singing the words starry-sky; uttering clouds are suggested by a circular waving motion of hands and arms from one side of the body to the other. With the strong prevalence of Tai Chi practice amongst the monastics and laypeople of this community, one might suspect that the movements are Tai Chi inspired. On the other hand, this performative act holds an uncanny resemblance to evangelical Christian choral singing and movement. As yet, I still have not been able to secure any rm association between the hand movements and Tai Chi, while any connection with Christianity was denied by the formal Abbess in a conversation I had with her (Man Shin 2004, personal communication). To assist those who have not committed the lyrics to heart, there is usually a data projector slide providing the words, which have been adapted from a poem written by Fo Guang Shan religious leader Venerable Grand Master Hsing Yun:
VERSE 1 I love the starry sky at nighttime And the uttering clouds all the day Stars . . . starlight extends . . . boundaries of light Masses of clouds tell us the meaning of life Oooh yeah CHORUS No matter what kind of night we see No matter what kind of days we face Therell always be stars in the sky There will always be clouds. VERSE 2 The shining moon cannot always be full Only stars, they will be forever bright . . . 9

From the transcription above, the Grand Masters poetry may not seem to have an immediate connection to Buddhism. Indeed, performers may simply be conscious of the texts optimistic message. The words in fact refer to an esoteric concept of Buddhism, stars and clouds, which is the English translation of the Grand Masters name. Due to its religious connection, this performance item is known as a Buddhist hymn, composed with a completely Western orchestration in a pop ballad style that one might hear in a Walt Disney motion picture. While the younger Australia-born or English-educated participants (including non-Chinese minority members) sing this song with ease, those with limited English skills perform it less comfortably.

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Engaging in the diasporic musical practices in the sacred space of the temple or church allows participants to escape the problems attendant to migration, such as racial ascription. With recent advancements in music technology however, diasporans do not necessarily need to visit the ritual site in order to engage in a performative experience of identity. At the press of a button, they may sing along to professionally recorded and mastered CDs and DVDs of the ritual act and participate as both performer and audience member. This enables devotees to simply re-play and re-create that feeling of cohesive unity through sound in their leisure time, should they choose to do so. Wherever, whenever, and whatever the occasion, the performance of music evokes and organises collective memories and present experiences of place with an intensity, power and simplicity unmatched by any other social activity (Stokes 1994, 3). The experience of migration into a new language following the physical act of relocation is a natural occurrence in the lives of many migrants. Learning a new language in the adopted host country often involves learning new concepts that one does not normally express in the native tongue. These new concepts may help establish the sense of a shared future within the community. Expressed musically and linguistically through sacred songs, such concepts function like the sentiments of old, which are also expressed and continually relived in the language(s) of the home country. Shared audiovisual experiences including the re-enactment of ritual facilitated by music and language, draw on aspects of myth and memory and have great agency in strengthening community bonds. The potent activity of singing helps locate and express the individuals place in the group and the continuation of their particular tradition (Chan, K.B. 2005, 18). Singing sacred songs in both Chinese Catholic and Buddhist communities subsumes the willing individual as an ethnic actor, and as part of the larger collectivity. Through song, participants celebrate their common history while looking forward to a common future together. The spoken and sung word language is thus of pivotal importance in the expression of ideas and of self. Culture, after all, is entailed by language inasmuch as cultural identity is entailed by linguistic identity (Besemeres 2002, 203). Foreign places, hybrid spaces The performance of I Love the Starry Sky at Night-time relates to one post-migratory scenario an assimilative act catering to the collectivitys younger generation and the wider non-Chinese community. Its soundscape is entirely non-foreign to the Western ear and for those assimilated to mainstream Australian culture. This is unlike Boreboluomiduo Xinjing, which is sung as a traditional or even authentic Buddhist item from the home country. While Huang Huang Sheng Ti and Zhong Guo Sheng Mu may be seen as similarly traditional, these items exhibit elements of hybridity with the translation of Latin text into Cantonese, and the Sinicization of Roman culture and aesthetics. In the ACCC and BLIA SYD, there are many more examples of hybridity, particularly in their musical repertories. One instance is the Buddhist chant Yu Fo Ji (Verses for Bathing the Buddha). This Mandarin chant has been harmonized with a Western backing track. Synthesizer sounds sparkle in the lush introduction as the melismatic melody weaves over solid primary chords. Traditional Chinese music is almost exclusively devoid of harmony, but this remix seems to have been built entirely on it (see Figure 4). Interestingly, a sonic slice of tradition is offered in the juxtaposition of the dharma instruments in this modern arrangement. A similar case in point is the Gao Yang Zhan (Lamb of God),10 an important liturgical segment or Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass celebrated in Mandarin by members of the ACCC. As illustrated in Figure 5, its text has been set to a Chinesesounding melody, characterized by a pentatonic scale. The supporting chordal structure,

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Figure 4. Yu Fo Ji (Verses for Bathing the Buddha).

however, is a Western musical element, produced on an electronic organ. More compositions in hybrid or Western style have emerged post-migration through composition competitions. These new hymns, written in Australia post-migration, stand in contrast to the musical items already mentioned as religious music of localized hybridity. In the ACCC, a major competition promoting locally written hymns took place in 2000, which the community had themed as the year of Reconciliation (He Hao). Many of the hymns were written in verse and refrain form, with predominantly Western melodic and harmonic structures. Not particularly Chinese in sound, the hymns were designed for congregational singing in formal Cantonese and emerged as a CD of fourteen new works. BLIA SYD hosts an annual composition competition where spiritual poetry written by the organizations Grand Master is set to music in any style from rock ballad to hip hop and rap. The competition is open to people of all religions, gender, and ages. Three nalists are

Figure 5. Gao Yang Zhan (Lamb of God).

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chosen to compete in the international heat held in Taipei known as Sounds of the Human World. The competition yields an amazing corpus of religious repertoire each year, which is realized by the Fo Guang Shan Order as compilation CDs, often in sets of three of more discs. Even to the present day, the music of my interviewees continues to be shaped by their experiences of migration in the production of sacred songs that assert a new and multilayered sense of self. The songs composed in Australia are undeniably hybrid and as malleable as the concept of identity itself. I see the revitalization of culture in the ACCC and BLIA SYD as a response to contested individual and group identities. The resulting hybridity in the music in both groups is not from bifurcation of any sort; nor has it evolved from the inclusion of non-Chinese outsiders in the ethnic ritual. This new homeland hybridity seems to rest comfortably with the hybridity that evolved from the penetration of Western culture in the homeland prior to immigration. Perhaps maintaining the balance of old and new hybridity in their religious lives as expressions of cultural belonging is a means by which my consultants continue to negotiate and renegotiate their sense of self. The situation of the hybrid Chinese-Australian is perhaps best understood using cultural theorist Stuart Halls explanation of diaspora experience (1993, 401 2). Through symbiotic coexistence and realization of the need for diversity, migrants arrive at a sense of identity that functions through difference and hybridity. According to Hall, such diaspora identities . . . are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference (402). It is displacement, or a certain defamiliarization experienced by the ethnic actor that fuels imaginative and inspired thought and activity, in the terrain of identity and culture, with unique and creative outcomes (Hall 1993; Lee 2004, 76; Matthews 2002). The beginnings of hybridity in the ACCC and BLIA SYD thus arise from culture contact where migrants are confronted by a distorted and uprooted sense of identity in their new surroundings. Overwhelmed by defamiliarization, these contemporary diasporans nd themselves both here and there at once, to borrow from Suarez-Orozco (2000, 11). Such migrant experiences take place in the third space of hybridity, a concept espoused by post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha (1994). In this space, diasporans are able to alternate between homeland and host society (or indeed, new homeland) cultures, thereby preserving and maintaining both (Chan, K.B. 2005, xiii). Most importantly, they are able to create a hybrid product that is new, fresh, and unique to their respective sub-communities. The sound systems of language and music are two complementary channels through which change takes place in the ACCC and BLIA SYD. Here, sub-community members have not restricted themselves to the two classical options from sociology, that is, ossication by holding on to old ways of living, or cultural loss in the new homeland (xiii). Rather than simply passing as members of the dominant majority (20), they have formulated a hybrid middle path of negotiation between the hybridities of the old country and the new. It is in the third space that we nd the syncretic dynamic in these ethnic actors, who have acquired productivity through the process of localization (1912).11 In the ever-developing sonic space of the two sub-communities, one may nd traditional chant of the old world, the beginnings of Chinese-inuenced hymnody, Chinese-sounding melodies supported by Western harmonies, and completely Westernized musical items sung in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese with no connection to Chinese culture whatsoever. It is apparent that these migrants as ethnic actors are fully mobile within and across ethnic boundaries. They negotiate an identity through an ethnicity that is both instrumental to, and expressive in, their religion and music.

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What has been discussed so far pivots on the notion of in-between-ness as proposed by Ang (2001) and inspired by Bhabha (1994). Rather than focusing solely on a shared historical consciousness and narrative, migrants look toward in-between spaces . . . that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration and contestation (Bhabha 1994, 12). This in-betweenness arises from the void in which migrants experience a version of social reality that the diaspora wants to inscribe (Lee 2004, 59). Many in diaspora feel that they are supplementary to the centre the homeland and for that reason not entirely part of the host or adopted society. In this regard, diasporas represent a void of ambivalence for the host as much as the home country (Lee 2004, 59). Afrmative potential and positive empowerment may be found from such ambivalence, internal indeterminacy, and instability (Lee 2004, 71). For this instability and hybridity is characteristic of processual identity formation manifested in the third space (Lo 2000, 156), an in-between, transitional realm which is as highly fertile as it is disconjunctive (see Bhabha 1994; Lee 2004, 70).12 It is an area charged with the meaning of culture, where the positionality discussed earlier never ceases due to the constant shift in markers of identity. Hybridization, then, is ultimately a remedy for the dangers of polarity and will continue to serve diasporans into the future (Chan, K.B. 2005, xiii). Performing their identities by choosing who they are from within the third hybrid space, diasporans provide a constant source of positive and productive indeterminacy in the act of articulating their arbitrary and highly subjective differences (Ang 2001; Lee 2004, 70). Members of the ACCC and BLIA SYD are thus able to continue negotiating and asserting their musical identities in creative ways due to their hybrid status; it would be interesting to witness the sounds that will emerge in ensuing years. A practice-based response Towards the end of my eldwork period in 2004, I felt compelled to respond artistically to the cultural complexities and undercurrents present in the sub-communities that I had been observing. Impassioned to address my own sense of cultural displacement, or more correctly, in-betweenness, I decided to follow the lead of my consultants in the creation of a new sacred work that would bring both multifaceted musical traditions together as an expression of my own hybridity. Conceptually, this gesture would expand on the idea of syncretism and transport the music I had ethnographically observed from the world of function into that of art. The perfect occasion arose in Canberra with the De Viana Liturgical Music Prize at St Christophers Cathedral. In the tradition of mid to late-twentieth century compositions, I wrote and performed In Meditation, a piece for solo instrument and tape, or prerecorded soundtrack.13 The solo instrument in this case was the erhu (Chinese two-stringed bowed ddle), which provided a melodic contour above a pre-recorded track that I had sequenced, mixed, and mastered onto a CD prior to the performance. Despite its original performative context in a cathedral concert for a Western audience, In Meditation was inspired and inuenced by the spiritual practice of meditation in Roman Catholicism and Chan Buddhism. The overall ambience is indeed slow, meditative, and reective, whereby the sonority of the erhu could be featured through the direct quotation of two Gregorian plainchant tunes: Veni, Veni Emanuel (O Come, O Come Emanuel) sung at Advent, and the Paschal Exsultet (literally Rejoice)14 performed during the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday. Both tunes are sung in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English in the ACCC, and indeed in the wider Roman Catholic community.15 Figures 6 to 9 illustrate how the plainchant tunes are stylistically morphed to the conventions of erhu performance practice there is much sliding between the pitches, and

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Figure 6. In Meditation, quotation 1 an extract from the score.

microtonal inections and ornaments. However, the original modality has been preserved and is recognizable to those familiar with the plainchant despite the occasional moments of obscurity. A premeditated improvisation follows each plainchant statement so that a slightly different erhu line eventuates with every rendition of this piece. In this comprovised fashion, so called because the piece rests between a traditional composition and an improvisation, I aim to develop contemporary erhu technique as an individualized contribution to the performance tradition. Woven beneath the erhu line is a pre-recorded soundscape consisting of slowly moving drones. In the composition of this track, I used special effects such as the sound of the wind to allude to the arid Middle Eastern and Central Asian plains through which Roman Catholicism passed into China during the thirteenth century (Hartig 1910). It was through a similar terrain that Buddhism arrived in China several centuries earlier. Drones produced by a detuned cello and the sound of my own voice are punctuated by sampled dharma instruments, such as those mentioned above in the description of monophonic Buddhist chant. The sounding of Buddhist percussion at cathartic points in the soundtrack of In Meditation is in slight imitation of the harmonized chant CDs that are mass produced by the Fo Guang Shan Order and consumed by members of BLIA. In Meditation is most certainly a product of hybridity in the new homeland. The erhu, to begin with, is a Chinese instrument of Middle Eastern antecedence, and rendering

Figure 7. Veni, veni Emmanuel an extract in neumes (after Neale and Helmore 1856).

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Figure 8. In Meditation, quotation 2 an extract from the score.

Gregorian plainchant on this instrument is a deliberately syncretic act in my reection on the history of Roman Catholicism and Buddhism in China. The religions certainly intersected but never did cross-pollinate in the way that Buddhist teachings met with Daoist spiritual thought. In my sound world, traditional Catholic and Buddhist sounds collide; they are superimposed and duly intertwined. This sonic activity could be seen as the tangible outcome of months of my hearing both sound worlds as a participant observer. Honing in on China, a country I have never visited, and connecting with the past through a reconstructed primordial narrative, I aimed to marry the two religious traditions in a cultural and artistic expression of identity and self. In Meditation is one of many practicebased compositions and transcends traditional boundaries of religion, spirituality, and music. Combining music technology and sounds from the West with Eastern nuances, timbres, and instruments, this composition is a product of diaspora experience in which I confront my own indeterminate state as an ethnic actor who, much like my consultants, is continually affected by the yoke of positionality.

Figure 9. The Exsultet an extract in neumes (Canticum Novum 2002).

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Coda: Concluding thoughts In this paper, I have focused on the multiple rootedness and resulting hybridity of migrants such as that of my interviewees and myself. Like other diasporans around the world, individuals from the ACCC and BLIA SYD are, in their hybrid states, in the continuous process of crossing, traversing, and translating linguistic, cultural, and psychic boundaries (Tong and Chan 2001, 7). Articulating dual identities and consciousness, they are not restricted to being either/or, but are both, since it is possible for one to be Chinese regardless of national boundaries (Chan, K.B. 2005, xiv). Anthropologist Tan Chee-Beng acridly asserts that contemporary Chinese overseas are Chinese insofar as they choose to identify as Chinese. After all, we have established that cultural identity is in no way a xed concept. There is no one way to be Chinese with identities expressed in multiple fashions depending on ones experience in the socialization and localization process. No longer is there the expectation of speaking a Chinese language to qualify ones Chinese-ness (Tan 2004, 66 7).16 It is by realizing that there are different ways of being Chinese that diasporans come to understand their hybridized status without needing to accept, ascribe to, or t within a xed notion of Chinese-ness. The people in my study may identify ethnically as Chinese, but are at the same time invariably hybrid in culture. It is impossible, as has been discussed, to place them in a specic conglomerate whole due to their divergent histories. My composition In Meditation, written in response to the eldwork I had conducted, could be seen as an assertion of my own Chinese-ness in the world of the Western contemporary composer. For members of the two sub-communities, I have taken their traditional music to a new plane of revitalization with which they are not entirely familiar and would not necessarily use as an expression of individual or group identity. However, in the art music scene, compositions such as In Meditation assist me in performing my identity as a contemporary Asian Australian composer informed by my Chinese heritage and ideas of Chinese-ness. Today, Chinese identity may be encountered in the form of music, language, and other cultural traits in Australia as well as in China, Singapore, and elsewhere around the world. However, much like Chinese cuisine, the avour of Chinese-ness varies dramatically depending on what part of the diaspora one is examining at a particular time. It is not merely a case of where youre from in the question of migration but where youre at (Ang 2001, 34 5; Gilroy 1991). Making the most of their complex and exible positioning . . . between host countries and homelands (Saffran 1991, 95), members of the ACCC and BLIA SYD, in grappling with the ongoing burdens of migrant life, have manipulated music into a potent tool of identity formation, and a product of their own diaspora experience. The resulting hybridity may be seen in religion, or rather, ethno-specic religious networks wherein a sacred music repertory has been created and maintained in the contemporary Sydney Chinese community. This repertory is diverse and multifarious, consisting of layers of sound from both past and present, in which the observer may witness shifting notions of identication. Whether it is a song and dance at a Buddhist festival, or congregational singing in a Catholic chapel, music serves as a religious and social outlet, a form of religious recreation and above all, a means of identication as Chinese, Australian, and of a distinct religious persuasion. In both sub-communities, we can see religious musical practices that are both localized and diasporic. The performance of these items, traditional and contemporary, helps ethnic actors ascertain who they are, and where they have arrived, post-migration.

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1. I acknowledge the possibility that my informants may move on later in life to other countries, or even return to their home countries, but focused on those who have chosen to stay in Australia during the time of my eldwork. 2. Amanda Scott (1994) observed that not all attendees at a Chinese church in Hawaii attended for the sake of worship. Several in the congregation attended church to meet people of the same ethnicity, and to take part in the social activities organized by the church community. 3. Otherwise known in Sanskrit as the Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra or the Prajna-Paramita Sutra. 4. A ritual slit drum or wood block stylistically carved in the shape of a sh. The sh, which has lidless eyes and therefore sleeps with its eyes open, symbolizes the ever present wakefulness and awareness of the Buddhist student (Woodensh Program 2008). 5. Otherwise known as temple bowl. The Chinese Buddhist temple bowl is designed to be struck rather than rubbed, unlike the singing bowl used in Tibetan Buddhism. 6. Father Chang has been with the sub-community since its establishment in 1954. 7. This ecumenical movement allowed for Gregorian plainchant and hymns, and the entire liturgy of the Roman Catholic Mass to be translated into the vernacular. 8. Both sub-communities have, in recent years, come to accept the preference for English in the younger generation. Vocal repertories are now specially composed to be sung in English with some bilingual leeway for the older generation, who prefer to sing in Cantonese or Mandarin. English has come to be used during major events and feasts that are attended by non-Chinese in the recitation of special Buddhist prayers, and in certain parts of the Roman Catholic liturgy. 9. Fieldwork transcription. 10. Also known as the Agnus Dei. 11. I would argue that it is more than a bifocal situation amongst the Australian Chinese I have observed it could be triple or quadruple consciousness at play depending on the many selves that an individual chooses to assume. This is especially so in instances where community members as ethnic actors may belong to one or more cultural organizations in addition to a religious one. 12. See Haggis (2004) for a contextualized reading of Ien Angs theory on hybridized identities, particularly in regard to double inbetweenness, a concept beyond the scope of this paper. 13. First premiered on April 2004 at St Christophers Cathedral, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn and awarded equal rst prize. 14. Also known as Exultet or Proemium Paschale. 15. There are several versions of this hymn, which is traditionally sung by the deacon over the Easter candle after it has been lit during the rst half of the liturgy on Easter Vigil, which takes place on Holy Saturday (the eve of Easter). 16. I have, however, encountered certain Chinese who feel that ones culture survives in the language. For them, it is essential for a Chinese to speak his or her native tongue in order to consider him or herself Chinese.

Notes on contributor
Dr Nicholas Ng is a full-time Research Fellow at Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Grifth University. Nicholas composes music and performs the erhu (two-string bowed ddle) nationally and internationally. He recently curated Encounters: Musical meetings between Australia and China (6 9 May 2010) www.grifth.edu.au/music/encounters, a four-day celebration of nearly 200 years of musical interaction. Interested in the healing properties of music, Nicholas seeks to marry the ancient and the modern through the use of acoustic and electronic sound.

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