Meling Jin: Writing Social Exclusion and New Belonging

Meiling Jin：書寫社會隔離與新的歸屬

Meiling Jin, a British citizen who was born in Guyana to Chinese parents, writes her experience migrating from Guyana to the United Kingdom as an eight-year-old Chinese girl and her transition from childhood to adulthood. The loss of order and security in her personal background is revealed in her writing of a world filled with displacement, racial discrimination, cultural confrontations, and identity confusion. This paper aims to analyze Jin's work through the discussion of the protagonists' mental inquietude while adopting cultural theories to examine how the protagonists construct a new order in their lives. As Jin originated from Guyana, a previous British colony, I will also explore the history of Chinese settlement there to provide the context of her work. A child of immigrant parents, Meiling Jin manages to articulate her stories living in a cultural borderland. Living a life as the other in the United Kingdom, Jin narrates an experience of social exclusion, an inner split of selfhood, and finally, a self of new belonging.Meiling Jin是一位出生於蓋亞那但現居英國的華裔女性，她的作品描述了自己八歲時由蓋亞那移居英國的經歷與從兒童至成年時期的轉變。她個人成長歷程裡出現的失序與安全感的缺乏可以由她充滿錯置、種族歧視、文化對峙及混亂的身分認同的書寫裡發現。本篇論文旨在藉由對Jin作品中主要人物紛亂的內心世界的討論來分析她的寫作並採用文化理論來檢驗她們如何在生活中建立新的秩序。而因Jin來自原先為英國殖民地的蓋亞那，筆者亦將探索華裔移民遷往當地的歷史以提供其寫作當時的背景資料。幼時就是移民的Meiling Jin記述了身處文化邊陲地帶的故事，身為居住在英國的他者，Jin成功記述了社會排除的體驗、內心的分裂以及擁有全新歸屬感的自己。