Elizabeth Oldfield speaks to editor in chief of Vice UK, Zing Tsjeng 09/11/2022
Elizabeth
Hello, and welcome to The Sacred. My name is Elizabeth Oldfield, and this is a podcast about the deep values of those who shape our common life. It’s become a cliche to say we live in divided times. But I think we all feel this sense that it’s harder and harder to understand people who aren’t like us or who disagree with us, and to get a sense of the perspective of another tribe, except in a really adversarial setting. I started this project because I got quite worried about the ways in which technology and our information environment and our political climate are encouraging us to think other people are not just wrong, but stupid or even evil; and wanted to become, because it doesn’t always come naturally, more curious, more empathetic, and ultimately, part of the solution, not part of the problem around this issue of rising polarisation. And to be honest, before it all sounds a bit too earnest, I’m also just really nosey. I’m really interested in people and how they came to believe what they believe, how they ended up where they are, and how they think about how they use their voice. I really love chatting to guests. It’s such a privilege that so many have been willing to actually be quite vulnerable to self–reflect, to share something of their own story, their own hunch about what a good life might be, because ultimately, aren’t we all pondering at least semi–consciously that question in the background? I’ve spoken to guests from such a wide range of different professional backgrounds, from every point on the political spectrum from every set of metaphysical…well, ‘every’ is probably an overclaim… from many, many groups on the political spectrum, from many different perspectives on metaphysics, belief, non–belief, and I always come away with my honestly, often unlovely prejudices punctured, and a deeper sense of a complicated human being in front of me. In this episode, I spoke to Zing Tsjeng, who is the Editor of ‘VICE UK’, the author of ‘Forgotten Women’, which is a book series, four books actually, telling stories of, as it says, forgotten women. And she’s also the host of the BBC podcast ‘United Zingdom’. We spoke about the legacy of her childhood growing up in Singapore, what role ‘VICE’ plays in the media landscape now, and the public narratives around East and Southeast Asian or ESEA identities. There are some reflections from me at the end, as usual, and I really hope you enjoy listening.
Zing, I am going to not ease you in at all. We’re going to try and go deep quick, which is always a bit uncomfortable, particularly, when we’ve just woken up or we’re just adjusting so please don’t worry if it feels awkward. And we can always come back to some of these themes, but I’m terrible at small talk. I really love creating space for people to self–reflect actually, about the principles, the ethical values that have shaped their life. And so much of this is often unconscious, and we’re not encouraged to think about it very much. But you’ve had a little bit of warning that I would ask you ‘What is sacred to you?’ And you can really take it in any direction that you’d like. I hope it’s been generative, and that something bubbled up anyway. Where did you start?
Zing Tsjeng
Hmm, yeah, it was difficult actually. Because I guess sacred for me always has connotations of religion. And I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this before, but basically, when I was growing up in Singapore, I inadvertently got sent to quite a religious school. And my mum will fully admit to this, this was pure laziness on her part: she just picked the closest school possible to where we lived at the time. And it was a really, really, Presbyterian Christian school. And I would even go as far as to say, was quite fundamentalist, really. We had an in–house pastor who would preach to us every single morning. We’d start school in the morning singing hymns. In fact, we’d actually blast the Christian hymns out in the very residential neighbourhood the school was in, which I feel like at 7am in the morning is not really what you want to wake up listening to, right?
Elizabeth
That’s not loving your neighbour.
Zing Tsjeng
It’s really not loving your neighbour. It’s definitely not loving your neighbour if they’re not a morning person. So, we had this pastor, we had, you know, regular lessons that were called Christian values. And she talked to us about you know, what God wanted for us, and what was sacred, and you know, what is the Christian thing to do? And a lot of it revolved around converting people and evangelising. So, 10–year–old me you know, goes to the school and listens to this adult tell you in a very sincere, and she fully signed up, she really believed that and she was like, ‘If you do not convert your family, they are going to burn in hell, when the Rapture comes’, which is very intense for a 10 for like a 9/10/11 year old to listen to right… when you’re very impressionable. So, I grew up genuinely believing this stuff, because I was being taught it in school. And I would try…
Elizabeth
And your parents weren’t Christians?
Zing Tsjeng
No, my parents weren’t Christians, at all. I mean, you could loosely describe them as Taoist. So, you know, Taoism you have a bit of ancestor worship, you know, we’d go and clean the graves of my grandparents, it was very, you know, loosely, culturally Taoist, in the way that many Singaporeans are. So, they had no idea that I was being indoctrinated at the school at all, until I had this conversation with my mum, where I sat down and I was like, ‘We are all going to die. We are literally going to go up in flames unless you convert to the gospel of Jesus Christ’. And to her credit, my mum did not blink at all. And she basically sat me down and was like, ‘Okay, so you’re saying that unless we convert, we’re going to go to hell and anybody who’s not a Christian, no matter what they do, if they don’t convert, they’re all going to burn in hell.’ And I was like, ‘Yes, that’s exactly it. You’ve absolutely nailed it.’ And then she goes down this list, and it’s like, ‘Okay, so, you know, by this logic, Mother, Teresa, she’s going to heaven. She’s chill.’ And I was like, ‘Yep, yep. Teresa, you know, she is going to heaven.’ And then she goes down this list, and it’s like, ‘Okay, what about Gandhi? Gandhi’s not Christian, right? So, like, does this mean he’s going to hell? But didn’t he do all this good stuff?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I guess by that logic, Gandhi would be in hell.’ And then she just goes down this list of people who, you know, are genuinely regarded as really good people, but aren’t Christian. And then, by the end of this conversation, I have been fully de–radicalised. And I was like, completely blown away. I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I mean, this is just logically inconsistent with what everyone’s been telling me at school. And actually, maybe what I’m learning in school isn’t right?’ So that to me, was kind of one of the I would say, the formative philosophical/spiritual/religious experiences when I was a child where, you know, my mum really calmly didn’t shout at me, didn’t make fun of me for you know, believing these things, even though you know, I think the sight of 10–year–old me frantic with panic that she was kind of go to hell, was probably quite amusing for my mum. She just actually just took me at face value and talked me through it and, you know, explained to me and talked to me and took me seriously and said, ‘You know, by this logic, like all these people would be going to hell and do you think that’s fair? Do you think that’s just? Do you think, you know, if there was a Supreme Being or God, do you think that’s what he would want for people and that’s how people would get rewarded for doing good things in their life?’ And she kind of just really de–radicalised me in quite like a simple, straightforward way. I mean, I was only 10, but I think that experience for me was really formative.
Elizabeth
Did you stay at the school?
Zing Tsjeng
So, I finished Primary school, but then I left for Secondary school, to a non–denominational school, which I think was for the best.
Elizabeth
Yeah, it’s really interesting. I can totally understand why you would have some allergy to the religious associations of the word sacred. I like it, if you’re able to kind of bracket that stuff out…like for religious people, those things might be sacred, but I think everyone has some deep things, that if you offered the money to give up, they would feel quite conflicted about or compromised, that probably do unconsciously shape our life, whether it’s you know, for some people, it’s equality, for some people it’s nature, for some people, it’s you know… lots of reasons we don’t even know. Is there something that kind of plays that role in your life, and you don’t… please don’t use the word sacred if you don’t want to, but maybe like deepest principles, or kind of guiding things?
Zing Tsjeng
I think treating people with kindness and treating people in good faith is important to me. Just because, you know, going back to the way my mother treated me, she was really kind about it and she took it in good faith. So, I think those have been things that are really important to me through all my life. And also, just to be kind of open–minded. I think that, you know, growing up in Singapore, which, you know, I think things have changed a lot since I left, but growing up in Singapore at the time in like the 90s and the early 2000s, it was quite a conservative place. And it was pretty homophobic, it was pretty sexist. And it was basically almost everything that I don’t consider myself now. And I think one of the things that was really formative for me when I was growing up, was the homophobia of Singapore. So, I’m bisexual and even just coming to terms with that in Singapore was really, really difficult because it made me the object of gossip and rumour at school. I was bullied because of it. Teachers would like allude to it. It was really not very nice to kind of have to go through that when you were a teenage girl. And, and one of the things that I remember most clearly was when I was kind of becoming, I think I must have been like 16 or 17… Singapore made this big deal about, you know, finally letting people put on a play about homosexuality. And the reason for that is because in Singapore, you have to send all your plays through to the Government censors to make sure there isn’t anything that could, you know, incite disharmony in the country or something like that. And this play got through and they put it on. And I remember watching it, and for me, it was a really big deal. It was a play about two gay men, you know, not my experience at all, but I was still really excited because I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is a play about my community, this is amazing. I’m really into the theatre and the arts. And this is so cool!’ And then I remember going there and then I remember seeing like a couple of guys looking quite shady around the public bathrooms in the play, in the theatre. And I turned to a friend, and I was like, ‘What’s up with these guys?’ And he was like, ‘Oh, they’re undercover cops. They’re just here to keep an eye on everything.’ And I was so shocked. And I was actually kind of disgusted, to be honest. I was disgusted at how small minded the police were to think that a play could have any kind of, I don’t know, like, what did they think was gonna happen, that a bomb was gonna go off? lt just didn’t make any sense to me. So, one of the things that’s been really important to me in all my life is just to be really open–minded about stuff, because if I’d kind of bought into all of that, when I was growing up in Singapore, I would have turned out to be a really unhappy, really closeted, closed minded person. And I cannot imagine the kind of life that alternate reality me would have had, I don’t think it would have been a very happy one.
Elizabeth
That’s really helpful to get a snapshot of some of the kind of intellectual, political air that you that you were breathing as you were growing up. I’d love to hear, if it’s alright, a little bit more about Taoism, about how you think that shaped maybe your family, if at all, and the wider culture? Because it’s something I’ve been reading about, and I have been very interested in recently but don’t have lots and lots of knowledge about.
Zing Tsjeng
Yeah, Taoism is really interesting. I mean, I feel like you probably intellectually have read way more about it than I have. But for me growing up, the experience is very much embedded in kind of just like the everyday social fabric of me and my family’s lives. So, we have, and we still have actually, an altar in our home in Singapore, with pictures of my grandparents. We offer them food, so we leave kind of, you know, nice plates of food, bowls of fruit for them, make sure the altar is always stocked. Occasionally, we kind of pray to them with joss sticks. Hilariously, my parents never really told me what to pray, so, I would just make it up in my head.
Elizabeth
Hi Grandma!
Zing Tsjeng
Yeah, ‘Hi grandma, I hope you’re okay…’ And every year there’s this kind of celebration called ‘Ching Ming’, which is where you go to the graves of your grandparents or your ancestors, and you kind of clean it up: you make sure it’s nice, you pull out any weeds, you leave flowers, you leave offerings of food, you kind of like wait around a while, sometimes you burn offerings. So, for instance, you might have heard of this thing called ‘hell money’, which sounds really ominous. But really, it’s just like paper cash that you can burn, or, you know, paper joss – I can’t remember what they call it English – but it’s basically paper money that you burn in like a tin can or something. And it’s meant to kind of go towards your ancestors in the next life, in the afterlife, so they have a lot of money to spend in the afterlife. In Hong Kong, you can get really, really elaborate paper offerings to burn. So, I’ve seen like paper Armani shirts get burnt, paper BMWs, like little ones get burned, and paper flats get burned, like miniature flats, and apartments get burned. And the idea is when you burn it, it goes to your grandparents or ancestors in the afterlife. And then after that’s done, then you kind of give these, I guess you would call them sort of like, stone ingots to the youngest person in the family, which is usually me. And then you throw them on the floor, and if they come up a certain way, that’s the sign that you know, your ancestors are kind of done with all of this. They’re kind of like they’ve eaten well, they’ve got the presents, they’re cool, and then you can take the food home and you can eat it yourself.
Elizabeth
And what happens if they come up a different way? Are they like, ‘Nope, that’s for me, I’m still hungry’.
Zing Tsjeng
You just have to wait around. This is a thing: eventually you just end up throwing it on the ground multiple times trying to get the right combination so, all of you can like go home and eat the food.
Elizabeth
So interesting. And you’ve painted such a vivid picture of it. Singapore is quite mixed religiously, right? Obviously, you went to a Christian school, there’s Taoism… How does that religious diversity show up? Is it quite harmonious? Is there friction?
Zing Tsjeng
It’s really interesting, because I think the Singapore Government has done a good job of trying to make sure that all these different religious groups and ethnic groups get along. So even in, you know, the pledge for Singapore, which school children have to recite every day in school, you know, it talks about how we have all these different races and groups living in harmony. There are four main, I guess, ethnic groups. So, you have Chinese people who are the dominant group, and they have the biggest numbers, basically. And then you have Malays who are kind of like indigenous to the region. So, you know, you get Malay people in Malaysia, you get Malay people in Singapore, they’re kind of like indigenous people to the region. You have Indians who migrated over from India to Southeast Asia. And then you have, I guess, the Singapore Government call them ‘Other’. And I guess, in the UK, you would call them ‘mixed–race’. So, we call them Eurasians. So, they’re a mix of Europeans and Asian people, kind of mixed–race people. And the Singapore Government goes quite a long way to make sure everyone gets along which is why I think, you know, I was talking about the Singapore Government censoring plays and plays having to go through the Government for approval… the Government’s argument is that we have to make sure that every single group gets along. So that’s why we have to maintain quite a tight grip on the kind of cultural output of the country to make sure nobody’s, you know, accusing the other group of doing something or whatever. I think those years when I was younger, were really tightly controlled. I think now it’s slightly more relaxed, especially with the internet, people discuss things a lot more openly than they used to. But the Singapore Government still tries to crack down on a lot of freedom of speech. And I think it’s really to people’s detriment.
Elizabeth
Yeah. What prompted your move to the UK?
Zing Tsjeng
I would actually say, if you asked my parents, they would say, ‘Oh, there was better educational opportunities in the UK.’ But I would actually point to that experience at the theatre as being like the thing that made me go, ‘I don’t want to be here anymore’. Because it made me think, I can’t be somewhere where people in authority trust us so little that they feel the need to send undercover police in. And I know in the UK, if you go to protest, there’s undercover police. It’s not something that’s unique to Singapore. But I think there was something about the fact that I was so young, so excited to see, you know, my community represented on stage in Singapore in a place where I thought I’d never get to see this happen, and then having that completely crushed by the fact that there were cops there. I think that was the thing that pushed me to want to be somewhere else.
Elizabeth
Yeah. And did you know that journalism, writing and editing was your thing from quite early? Or was it more of a zig–zag path?
Zing Tsjeng
No, I think it was more of a zig–zag path. I’d always been really interested in writing, but mainly more creative writing. And then when I started university, I started doing the student newspaper, but honestly, it was just a bit of a laugh. I mean, I had loads of fun doing it, I made so many friends, and then I think weirdly, by third year, I was absolutely desperate for a job. So, I started applying to advertising schemes, like advertising grad schemes and got absolutely nowhere, which is probably for the best. Because I might still be in advertising now, if I’d gotten onto one. And then I kind of thought, ‘Oh, you know…’, I had won a prize for student media, I’d done an internship as part of that prize and then I was like, ‘Oh, well, you know, I don’t really know what to do. Maybe I should just do a Master’s in Journalism.’ And that was the thing that kind of set me on the path to becoming a journalist.
Elizabeth
And you have had this extraordinary rapid rise to editing ‘VICE UK’. I wanted to talk about how you think about your public voice, and your public platform, and the influence that people who edit outlets in particular, have. My first question was just… for those who haven’t come across ‘VICE’, how would you describe it? And I was laughing because you shared a really funny thing on Instagram from, I think ‘End Of The Road Festival’… The thing that was like, tongue–in–cheek descriptions of the different outlets and said ‘VICE’ like middle–class public–school boy explaining street culture or something? And you were there standing next to it… And I was like ‘They’re a little bit out of date here.’ But I was trying to think of how I would describe it, but I’d love to hear in your words like, what’s its kind of tone and position in the wider media space?
Zing Tsjeng
I mean, I would describe it as youth media. I think we are still very much catering for the demographic of people who are in their years at university, in their 20s and early 30s. Basically, people who would self–define as young people, and I mean, I still do even though I’m in my 30s.
Elizabeth
When do you have to give that up? I’m not sure I’m ready.
Zing Tsjeng
I don’t know. Maybe never. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be the generation that never gives up?
Elizabeth
I’ve started gardening and I feel like that’s a death knell.
Zing Tsjeng
But oh, yeah, I’ve started gardening as well. But you know, I’m trying to make that cool. Yeah, so, youth media. I think our politics are progressive and Left wing, LGBTQ friendly, inclusive… We are very much about kind of holding people to account, we are trying to think of different issues, we’re very pro–Union… So, we’re very pro, kind of, like, ‘Tax to billionaires’, you know, ‘Give people back power.’ You know, people, especially young people’s lives are not as good as they could be. And it’s because people and the state are basically taking away from society; taking away the opportunities that young people should be having. And I think that’s really obvious now, when you look at stuff like…’Oh, God, the windfall tax, you know, billionaires like Elon Musk, and people like that, would rather be developing space stations on Mars than investing in the future of the planet.’ And so yeah, I think that’s how you could describe our politics. And I think we are very much aware of the fact that a lot of the media does not serve young people. So, for instance, you know, you see everything about the cost–of–living crisis happening now in the UK. And what I haven’t seen is you know, any outlet besides us, start talking about how this is going to affect young people? Why is renting so expensive now? Why can’t young people afford to buy their own place? Why is housing impossible? Why can’t people find jobs? Why are young people being made to jump through so many hoops just to get a job? You know, I graduated in the last recession, and I see a lot of the rumblings of what I and my peers had to go through starting right now. And I think it’s probably going to be a lot worse, actually, for people who are leaving university right now.
Elizabeth
Yeah, I was reading and enjoying a bunch of stuff in the last few days. I don’t feel sorry for editors in general, but having led something much, much smaller, I’m aware that you can kind of write, and you can build, and you built all of these great platforms and there’s more freedom, right, when you’re a content creator, than when the buck stops with you. And the whole kind of tone and positioning of the thing comes from you. And ‘VICE’ fascinates me because it’s trying to and is, I think, succeeding often to do really quite hard–hitting news pieces, shining light on injustices or things that need reporting for young people. All very mixed in with like, you did a very funny piece on roasting Carrie and Boris’ flat renovation, like ‘They paid £3000 for this. Here it is on Etsy: it’s £15.’ Yeah. I was like, it feels like Zing just had a day where she was like, ‘I need to write something fun!’
Zing Tsjeng
Yeah, I mean, well, this is it. I think what I really like about working at ‘VICE’ is it’s got a sense of humour. You know, yeah, we do a lot of serious reporting, we do a lot of serious stories. But we also know that people like to have a laugh. And, you know, a lot of the world is very depressing. And if there’s a serious story that makes you want to pull your hair out, but you can do it in a funny way, so maybe people, you know, have a bit of a laugh, while also getting educated about you know, just how much Carrie Symonds spent on that wallpaper, then we’re always gonna go for that. Because I mean, to be frank, most of the world is pretty depressing, already.
Elizabeth
Yeah, I think that’s what it is when I was trying to think about it: that’s what feels quite distinctive. You have basically satire outlets, and humour outlets, and then serious news outlets and ‘VICE’ seems to me, to be trying to do both in a way that’s quite unique. Are there tensions? Are there like editorial meetings where you’re like, ‘We absolutely can’t have that story nowhere near anything funny, or kind of vice–versa?’
Zing Tsjeng
Yeah, it’s funny. I was just discussing this with the freelancer about the cost–of–living stuff you know… ‘Can we make fun of how awful everything is? Or is that kind of disrespectful to the people who are struggling with their bills at the minute?’ And then kind of like coming up with a balanced kind of viewpoint on it. I think as time goes on, maybe people will start to acclimatise to how expensive everything is and then we can have a bit of a laugh about it. But I think right now, when you’re at the start of the crisis, and people are panicking, it’s not very helpful to go in straight with the kind of satire angle.
Elizabeth
Yeah, it’s a difficult needle to thread, I think. One of the things I’ve been reading and listening to you talk a lot about is ESEA identities: East and Southeast Asian identities. Can you just unpack that acronym a bit for us?
Zing Tsjeng
So basically, East and Southeast Asian identities or ESEA for short is actually, I think, a relatively new term that’s become popular over the last few years. And basically, it was kind of in recognition of the fact that when you say ‘Asian’ in the UK, a lot of people just automatically think of South Asian, when actually there’s quite a large ESEA community in the UK. It’s relatively spread out. So, you know, even you know the oldest Chinatown in the UK, which is in Liverpool, the biggest Chinatown, which is in London, you know, the communities are relatively small, but you know, taken together, we’re still, quite a big minority in the UK. And during COVID, what we saw was an increase in anti–ESEA, hate and violence. And I think that what that pandemic did, as terrible as it was, it’s really galvanised a new generation of ESEA people into kind of thinking about that racial and political identity in a different way, specifically in the UK, because Asian American politics and Asian American identity actually has a really, really long history over in the States. But Asian identity, specifically East and Southeast Asian identity here, there hasn’t been or at least, you know, to my knowledge, and I’m no academic, so, you know, please correct me if I’m wrong. It hasn’t had that same history. And not that many people in the diaspora have kind of thought of themselves as necessarily, all being part of the same community. But I think COVID really brought that to the front, especially if you had that experience of being discriminated against or harassed because of the way you look. It makes you think of your community in a completely different way. And there are so many different kinds of ESEA communities in the UK, you know, we have Filipino communities, we have Chinese communities: within that community, we have people from Hong Kong, from Taiwan, from mainland China, you have Singaporean Chinese people like me…it’s basically huge. And I think what the pandemic really did, is it brought a lot of those people from disparate groups together who might have been divided through nationality, through kind of heritage in whatever way, and it brought them together and made them start thinking of themselves as a group, because everyone else is thinking of us as a group.
Elizabeth
Yeah, I mean, the phrase ‘Asian’ is just so unhelpful, isn’t it? Like, how much geographic spread of the globe, we are trying to… it’s a bit like the word religion: it becomes sort of almost useless as a descriptor, because it’s so broad. So, it’s helpful to have a bit more granularity there. And I was listening to your lecture ‘Yellow peril’, and I would love you to say a bit about some of the tropes, stereotypes, narratives that have been used against often ESEA people. And where you see that showing up in the media that we consume?
Zing Tsjeng
Oh, so many. I guess, one of the things I always talk about is the way Eastern Southeast Asian women are portrayed in film and TV in the media. So, it’s often really sexual, it’s really objectified and this kind of shows up in different ways. So, you have, you know, the women who are kind of tiger moms, they’re really aggressive. They are really overtly sexual, and I don’t know if you watch that new Netflix show ‘Sandman’?
Elizabeth
I didn’t.
Zing Tsjeng
So, there’s one episode that takes place in a diner, and it’s kind of a prism of society. And then a guy comes in and he’s got this magical object that makes everyone stop lying and do what they really want to do with their lives. And to my knowledge, there’s only one East or Southeast Asian actress in the whole show. And she turns up in that episode as a really high–flying, Tiger Mom type, CEO or really high powered: classic trope. And then she turns into this really sexually aggressive woman who goes after this younger man. And again, this kind of falls into this trope of the hyper–aggressive, hyper–sexual dragon lady. You know, she’s kind of powerful, she’s aggressive, she’s scary. She’s like, overly sexual. And then the flip side of that is that you have this kind of ‘wilting lotus blossom kind of flower’ woman who’s really submissive, who’s really shy and meek, who’s, you know, who falls in love so quickly and so dramatically, and then she always does something dramatic to kind of show that she loves, you know, whoever she’s fallen for. You see this trope happening in something like ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’, in ‘Madame Butterfly’. It’s really a decade’s old sexual trope. And they’re kind of two sides of the same coin. You know, either way, no matter who she is, the Asian woman ends up being objectified and sexualized; she isn’t seen as someone with her own mind or her own desires. She’s only ever positioned in relation to who wants her? Who wants to have sex with her? Who doesn’t want to have sex with who doesn’t want to be with? And that’s really limiting. And that’s, you know, that’s classic objectification.
Elizabeth
What do you think shows up in the way we portray East and Southeast Asian men?
Zing Tsjeng
So, the classic stereotype for East and Southeast Asian men is that they are hyper–emasculated. So, they’re kind of these dorky nodes. They’re kind of these like nerdish guys who are really good at you know, science or maths, but they are hopeless around women, and they’re really socially awkward, and are never ever successful with girls. So that’s kind of almost the flip side of the female trope, really. And it’s really interesting, because if you look back at history, especially in the UK, in the early part of the 20th century, there were quite a few Chinese sailors who came over to the UK and settled down with white women. And there was this whole kind of ‘yellow peril’ panic in the press about it. And you know, journalists were writing stuff like, you know, ‘These women who shacked up with these, quote unquote, ‘oriental men’: they started looking older, they started looking, you know, aged, you know, they started even looking a little bit Chinese themselves.’ And it was this whole kind of panic around the kind of sexual prowess of Chinese men. Yeah, it was almost like the stereotype or the cliché, or the trope of the emasculated sexless Asian man emerged as a result of trying to control this idea that, you know, all these kinds of East and Southeast Asian men coming into the UK and taking these white women were somehow more successful than white men in the UK at getting women. It’s really interesting. And, you know, I’ve done a bit of reading around it, I would love to read more. There is some academic writing about it, but I honestly think that the tropes that have come up in response to East and Southeast Asian people are really fascinating, and they’re not really kind of dealt with in the same way that we might, you know, point out as racist a trope about any other ethnicity.
Elizabeth
Yeah. As an Editor, I’m just trying to work out how to frame this, because all of the language is so loaded, and I don’t even know how to describe the kind of crazy knot we seem to have got ourselves in. But I want to talk about kind of identity politics as a shorthand, this increased space that has been created over the last I’d say, particularly five years, to talk about how group identities interact, these kinds of stereotypes, some of the challenges that people from different groups face in society, around race around gender, and you’ve written about feminism, you’re bisexual… There are loads of ways this crosses over, and I know that ‘VICE’ is really comfortable with creating platforms for a wide range of voices. Where do you think we are with that in society, given there is also a lot of people who feel worried about the direction of travel or feel like things can go too far with focusing too much on group identities? The war on ‘woke’, you know, that kind of backlash–type response? What do you think is going on? Do you feel broadly hopeful that we’re moving in the right direction? Do you think there are some problems with the way some of this works?
Zing Tsjeng
I mean, I feel broadly hopeful, I think. I think the next challenge for us, you know, the big us, society, the world, whatever…is to start looking at ways in which we can build bridges between people, and I mean, that in the sense of, you know, what I find most heartening happening now, is if you look at the world of work, you see a lot of people starting to set up unions, you start to see people, you know, places like Amazon, like Starbucks, unionising, and a Union by default, and you know, I was a Union Rep myself at ‘VICE’ until I could, sadly, no longer be agile. I became the Editor, and I certainly couldn’t be part of it anymore. And I know from my experience, being a Union Rep, is that a Union is really a unique thing in that it necessarily has to draw from a huge group of people. Yeah, you all work the same company, but you might not have that many things in common, you know, on paper. And then you all have to kind of reach a consensus on what to do. Whether that consensus is ‘Okay, like, as a big group, we’re going to let you know the organising committee handle this thing. But we’re going to like, ask for a vote on this other thing, we’re going to treat management a certain way…’ I think that what has been really helpful, especially with my experience in unionising, I’d never ever done it before, is that it made me really hopeful about the kinds of things you can do when you all decide to make an effort to build bridges with each other, and to take something on that seems insurmountable.
Elizabeth
How easy do you think it is? I’m thinking of something like community organising, ‘Citizens UK’, which has done a lot of that: bringing people together from different institutions and organisations around a common purpose, around a common problem. But because they are bringing people together who are so different, it might be the local mosque and the local church and the local school, and, you know, institutions that don’t themselves have anything in common, bringing together people who might actually have very quite deep and painful disagreements on things like gender, or on their politics, for example. They have had to develop practices to help people just be like ‘Yes, this person might disagree with you on gender, yes, this person might actually have a real problem with your religion, might have a real problem with your sexual orientation.’ These things are so like, really hard to tolerate difference around…Do you have a sense of how Unions, or I guess more this is, again, I’m asking you to fix the world…collectively, as a society, what are the things that can help us go ‘Yes, this is important to me. Yes, I think you’re deeply, deeply wrong. And I’m going to work with you or I’m going to live beside you, or I’m going to build a society with you’ without feeling like you are just beyond the pale, like, ‘You are a group that I can’t be anywhere close to.’?
Zing Tsjeng
I think honestly, it comes down to personal judgement. You know, I can’t sit here and tell people, ‘The most important thing that you have to disagree with someone on is X’, because that’s completely subjective to someone’s own personal experience and their upbringing, you know. I know what mine are. You probably know what yours are. But I think everyone when they engage in community politics has to in some way, sit down and decide, what are the things that are most important to them? What are the things that they will not compromise on? So, you know, if you are in a Union, for instance, maybe the thing that you will absolutely not compromise on is giving up someone’s and this is a US example, I guess, giving up the right to someone’s like health insurance and being like, ‘Okay, well, I don’t really need help, you know, I’m relatively young and healthy, but my belief is that every single person in this company should have full coverage health insurance, and I’m not willing to sit in a negotiating table with management and say, ‘Oh, yeah, in order to get this one thing, we’ll give up health insurance, you know, because it won’t affect me, and I’ll be fine.’ So, I think that’s the kind of thing that’s really difficult, right? I think that’s the fundamental problem with politics now. And it’s, you know, you could argue that’s a fundamental problem with something like the Labour Party now, because they feel like they have to stand for everything, and they have to please everyone, and therefore, they end up pleasing nobody. Whereas I feel like the conservatives well, I would think, until recently, are very good at keeping internal disagreements under the surface and never letting it leak out. And that’s why they’ve been so good at holding on to power. But I think that’s one of the main problems of politics. And I think it kind of boils down to people actually have to figure out what is most important to them? What are they not willing to compromise on? Who are they not willing to get in bed with?
Elizabeth
What have you learnt, maybe as a Union Rep, maybe as an Editor, maybe as someone of ESEA descent, navigating some of the prejudices around that? What have you learnt about what helps us navigate these moments of deep disagreement, these deep divides, these rising divisions? Is there anything that you’ve been like, ‘Yeah, that helps us keep seeing each other as human, that helps us stay in the room, that helps us be part of the problem, or be part of the solution, not part of the problem with growing division’?
Zing Tsjeng
It’s my firm belief that no matter how different people are, you’ll always find at least one thing you can empathise with, or sympathise with, or agree on, no matter how different you are. And I think part of that is because, you know, Singapore is not a very big country, not a lot of people can even point it out on a map. And not a lot of people know anything about it. And because of that, I’ve had to approach a lot of people from the perspective of they don’t know anything about me or where I’m from. Why I speak a certain way, why I might know who Mr. Bean is, but I have no idea who Mr. Blobby is; you know, that was my experience when I first came to this country. And I think that, by necessity, meant that I had to get very good at speaking to people who on face value I had absolutely nothing in common with. Coming to the UK was such a huge culture shock because, you know, as amazing as all your films and TV shows are, they don’t really communicate a lot of what the UK is actually about to people who didn’t grow up here. So, when I came here, the drinking culture was a huge shock. The culture around like ‘taking the piss’ and it’s a loving way of showing that you’re affectionate with someone: that was a huge shock. I turned up and I genuinely thought everyone was horrible and hated each other. And that was why they were so horrible to each other all the time. So, I think my experience is that no matter how different you may initially seem to each other, there’s always at least one thing that you can either sympathise or empathise with, if not, like outright agree on. And I think that’s been really helpful in meeting people. And also, you know, in my job, I’ve had to speak with a lot of people who I have absolutely nothing in common with whose lives have been so different from me, but I’ve always been able to find at least one way in to kind of making them understand what I’m about and so I can understand what they’re about. You know, I had one interview where I interviewed someone who was a gang member who had attacked a woman with acid. I think a lot of people came up to me after seeing that and they were like, ‘That must have been so scary. You must have been like, terrified.’ And to be honest, at the time, I wasn’t scared at all. Because before we went on camera, and we did an interview, I was talking to him about, you know, growing up around East London, which is where I live. And he was like, ‘Well, you know, I got found with a knife’, which meant I went to prison for possession. ‘When I came out, I couldn’t find a job, you know, even Tesco didn’t want me. And, you know, I had to make money. I didn’t want to rely on my mum. And so, I joined a gang, and I started dealing drugs.’ And I was like, ‘You know what? I have never experienced anything like this in my life, but I know the feeling of not wanting to let my mum down, and not wanting to disappoint her, not wanting to be a burden. So, I kind of know what you’re about.’ And that’s kind of how you just kind of, you know, build connections with people. You can meet someone who on paper might seem, you know, the last person you want to have a conversation with, but if you talk to them, you can always find something to chat about. I mean, that’s kind of my firm belief. It’s probably what a lot of journalists think, to be honest. That’s why we’re in this job.
Elizabeth
Yeah. Zing Tsjeng, thank you so much for speaking to me on The Sacred.
Zing Tsjeng
Thank you so much for having me.
Elizabeth
I really valued, for someone who has never been to Singapore or doesn’t really have anyone close to me who grew up in Singapore, that little snapshot, that little sense of Zing’s childhood in Singapore and, how it’s formed her; particularly, that kind of thread of a kind of authoritarianism designed, at least in theory, to keep the peace between different groups, to not allow polarisation or conflict to build. But obviously, with some really negative consequences as well, which I think Zing might say has really shaped her politics now and has been part of how she’s ended up as the woman that she is. And obviously, there’s a kind of echo of that in the school that she went to; that it sounds like her experience of it was as quite dogmatic. And that lovely kind of parenting moment with her mother feeling really kind of heard, but not shamed was a really kind of personal detail. I really enjoyed the little insight into… So, Daoism and Taoism are functionally kind of referring to the same cluster of beliefs and practices, but they’re sometimes spelt with a T, sometimes with a D, sometimes said with a T, and not always matching up. Some people write them with one letter, and it sounds like the other when they say it. And that took me a little bit to work out when I first started reading around this. But it’s just a kind of lovely and honestly very funny anecdote of a family practising that. I can just imagine the young Zing’s kind of impatience, while also really wanting to honour her ancestors. And that final thing on Singapore is this sense of what do you do about diversity? I didn’t get a chance to speak to Zing about it very much, but I was reading that there’s certainly has been quite a lot of kind of underlying tensions between Chinese Singaporeans, Malaysian Singaporeans, that there’s a strong Christian community and a strong Buddhist community, and a Daoist community and that it is very peaceful in one sense, but possibly peaceful as a consequence of the Government being extremely careful about what’s allowed to be said in public. And it was a new thought for me that actually, there might be such thing as too much peace or too much harmony. They’re actually diverse societies, societies where people believe, belong and behave differently from each other, which fundamentally is, all societies, although in some of the differences are more obvious. That actually, they’re naturally probably does need to be a bit of fractiousness, a bit of noisiness a bit of rubbing each other’s corners off, as long as there’s enough freedom for people to express their particular culture or religion, and enough shared institutions and shared stake in a common life to kind of hold the thing together. Really, this conversation left me thinking a lot about Eastern and Southeast Asian identities, ESEA identities, which is this new acronym, to kind of complicate this badge ‘Asian’, which has been a descriptor for people with heritage in such a vast geographical swathe of the earth that it does become kind of not massively useful. And this is a hugely lowbrow reference…that’s alright: I am quite lowbrow. It was making me think about ‘Pitch Perfect’, which I will defend to the death, as a kind of ‘masterpiece of uplifting, acapella, college film, nonsense, bubble–gum goodness’, but which I rewatched recently, and it’s very stark about how much we’ve changed, and how much has moved on positively in terms of representation because it’s just sort of painfully stereotyped in the characters in a whole range of areas. But the ESEA, the East and Southeast Asian identity character is a member of the acapella group who is female, and so hard are they playing on this stereotype that Zing mentioned that she’s just so meek and demure that you can’t hear what she’s saying. And the camera cuts to her and she kind of mutters under her breath. And none of the other characters can ever hear what she’s saying. Because she is as Zing says, this kind of ‘wilting lotus blossom’: passive, quiet, kind of bland character really, that doesn’t really ever… as a kind of gag at the end where it turns out, she’s got this incredibly low, powerful singing voice. But that was what was coming to mind when Zing was talking about that stereotype. And I hope after this conversation, I will be a bit more alert to those kinds of tropes that we see. And hopefully, through Zing’s work, and others’ we’ll begin to see more complicated characters, more diversity of stories told, as we reflect the kind of complex human lives and characters of those who happen to come from that part of the world or whose ancestors did.
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