BBC interviewed with three Chinese people living in Paris about the protests, the unrest, and how we each experience France from where we stand.
I was also interviewed, sharing my perspective living in Paris, especially during the Paris Art Week.
BBC chose a phrase for the title that captures our different experiences particularly well:
“Where it is intense, it is intense; where it is quiet, it is quiet.”
That is quite close to what I have experienced these past few days.
On one side, there is the Paris seen in the news: burned cars, shattered shop windows, and confrontations between protesters and the police.
On the other, Art Week has continued.
Art Basel Paris, Paris Internationale, Asia NOW, OFFSCREEN, Moderne Art Fair, galleries and cultural spaces have remained active, with artists, collectors, curators and visitors continuing to meet, exchange and talk about art.
Two Parises, existing at the same time.
But during the interview, I also spoke about another issue that particularly concerns me: the tendency to simply blame the unrest on immigration.
When a society experiences violence and uncertainty, it can be tempting to find a simple “other” to blame.
Yet migration, identity and the movement of cultures are deeply complex parts of European society.
This is also a subject very close to my own artwork.
Migration has been a core theme of my artistic practice for many years.
From Hong Kong to Paris, and through my work across Japan and Asia, I have often asked myself:
When we leave one place and enter another, what do we carry with us? And what do we become?
Identity is never completely fixed.
Neither is a city.
So rather than simply asking:
“Who is local? Who is an immigrant?”
I am more interested in asking:
How do we live together when different people, cultures and memories meet in the same city?
I hope the deeper social issues behind the unrest can be seen and discussed seriously, rather than reduced to a story about “the other”.
BBC Chinese’s full report could be found in the office website.
https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/articles/ckq6n02lqz8vo/trad
Also republished / syndicated across international Chinese-language media:
United Kingdom / International (BBC Chinese — Original interview)
Taiwan 🇹🇼 (Yahoo Taiwan, Wearn / 旺得富, 新政財經論壇報, 知新聞 — independently covered and reported on Léo Yeung’s interview)
Malaysia 🇲🇾 (SYOK Chinese)
Canada / North America 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (51.ca / 無憂資訊, 大地360, 加西網 Westca, 文學城)
Chinese-language digital media (外來客網, 信鴿中文)