Individual Response
The questions I would like you to engage with are as follows: How might paying attention to sound/soundscapes help us think about all of the ways that capitalism destroys our relationships to each other, as well as about how people continue to form new relationships with each other? Think about this question by engaging Goffe’s concept of extra-coloniality. How might our understanding of Honolulu’s Chinatown change if we engaged this question of sound?
Although the course title is East Asia history, that does not mean we are restricted to history happening to these three physical regions. In the 19th century, people from East Asian countries began to migrate to other parts of the world, such as Africa, America, as a result of increasing interaction with foreign countries initiated by Capitalism and Colonialism. In this trend, we should broaden our views beyond the events happening in China, Japan, and Korea, and pay attention to these immigrants, in order to form a comprehensive understanding of East Asia as a whole.
Capitalism and Colonization improves the interaction between East Asian countries and other parts of the world. They contribute to the formation of relationships between people, either in a good or bad way.
Capitalism is a kind of social ideology that focuses on capital accumulation. In this accumulation, social wealth was unequally distributed, and people were assigned to different classes by the capital that they owned. What is more, this system amplifies the problem of uneven distribution of wealth. He-yin Zhen, mentions that wealthier people (capitalists) invest nothing but the capital(machines used for production) and poor people contribute their hard labor as a worker. However, the capitalists are able to grab the majority of the profit, leaving little amount for workers. Therefore, capitalists become richer and richer, while workers can barely feed themselves with trivial incomes. Another very important concept is extra-coloniality involved in this topic is extra-coloniality. This concept refers to a colonist extracts profit from a colony, through capitalism as I mentioned.
With these two concepts in mind, let’s discuss examples that involve Chinese in Jamaica and Honolulu.
Chinese immigrants settled down in Jamaica and started a business empire of soundtracks. The primary reason behind this action is that Chinese people want to accumulate wealth(capital) through this industry. With more wealth, Chinese people could gain a higher standard of living and acquire a privileged status in Jamaica society. This is an accurate manifestation of Capitalism. Chinese’s quick rise and monopoly in the soundtrack business, hurts the benefit of local sound track shop owners. As a result, many local people in Jamaica believe that this industry is manipulated unfairly by Chinese. This suspicion resulted from capitalism greatly hurting the relationship between Chinese people and Jamaica people. This extraction of wealth also makes Chinese the colonist under the concept of extra-coloniality.
However, Capitalism also creates opportunities of cultural communication, and forms positive relationships between Chinese and Jamaican people. The desire to gain capital drove Chinese people to step in local industries of Jamaica, and opened Chiney shops (Chinese soundtracks store). This Chiney shop becomes a place where Jamaican people go and relax after a whole day of work. This creates an opportunity for cultural interaction between Chinese and Jamaican people. This interaction allows people from very different cultural background to form a relationship.
In Honolulu, Capitalism deteriorates the relationship among people. Chinese people start to migrate to Hawaii because of war and riot in China. In Honolulu, Chinese people started Chinatown, which is an area occupied by Chinese stores and residences. However, the China town case is very different from Chinese Soundtrack stores in Jamaica. The racism is trending in Honolulu, especially hatred towards Chinese immigrants. Although Hawaii could experience Chinese culture in Chinatown, racism is preventing that from happening. When the plague arrives in Honolulu, Hawaiians blame Chinese immigrants for bringing them, and implement anti-Chinese policies towards China town. The authority locked down the Chinatown and set it on fire. This action greatly hurts the feeling of Chinese people, and thus destroys the relationship between Chinese people and Hawaiians. In my point of view, capitalism plays a role in the racism in Honolulu. The society has a fixed amount of resources, the arrival of new people would hurt the interest of people that were already there. It is reasonable for locals to be exclusive for newcomers to protect their own interest.
