By Harriet Ho

China is UBC’s largest source of international students and one third of our student population is of Chinese descent. How do student organizations reflect the diversity and divisions within the Chinese-Canadian community?

The Chinese Varsity Club. Photo taken by Geoff Lister, Ubyssey

Banana. Honger. Fob. Chink.

These are among the many stereotypes that people of Chinese descent face in the world and at UBC. Even when these slurs are not actually verbalized, the underlying stereotypes are undeniably still present at our university.

In 2008, a promotional video by a club on campus ignited these tensions. The Chinese Varsity Club (CVC), which often markets itself as the largest student club at UBC, created a video in the style of the Apple “Mac vs PC” commercials. A fluent English speaker from the CVC played one role and a heavily-accented Chinese student played the other.

The heavily-accented student was described as being from a “typical Honger Club”; “Honger” is a term often used for people from Hong Kong who largely maintain their home culture.

Many students were outraged at what they saw as an attempt to segregate the Chinese community into different cultural categories. The AMS was inundated with complaints, including official complaints from four other Chinese student clubs.

In the end, the AMS forced the CVC to write apology letters to the other clubs and go through equity training.

While this is perhaps the best-known example of the conflict that can arise out of the diverse forms of Chinese cultural identity among students on campus, there are many others simmering under the surface.

Yet at the same time, there are also strong feelings among Chinese UBC students that what they have in common is more important than their differences. Whatever divisions exist in language and cultural background—and there are many such divisions—there is also an opportunity to forge social bonds and explore new ways of identifying as Chinese-Canadian. Continue reading →