Sonic Poetics of Home and the Art of Making Do in Sinophone Toronto
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Sonic Poetics of Home and the Art of Making Do in Sinophone Toronto by Yun Emily Wang A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Music University of Toronto © Copyright by Yun Emily Wang 2018 Sonic Poetics of Home and the Art of Making Do in Sinophone Toronto Yun Emily Wang Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Music University of Toronto 2018 Abstract This dissertation is an ethnography of the “homes” imagined and practiced through sound and music in Chinese-speaking immigrant communities of Toronto. The notion of “home” and the social imaginary of homelands have been theorized extensively as important linchpins for forming diasporic identities and cohering transnational migrant communities. Music plays a vital role in these processes, as the ethnomusicology of diaspora has demonstrated. Although important, the dominance of formal musical performance in both academic and popular discourses tends to eclipse the fine-grained work of everyday life in contemporary immigrant experiences. This dissertation offers a complementary alternative, arguing that diasporic subjectivities emerge more from accumulations of everyday practices than through self- conscious memorialization of the lost homelands. Based on ethnographic research, I examine how homeland imaginaries mediate diasporic experiences of “home” in everyday singing, speaking, and modes of listening. I also explore how a person’s sonic expressivity interacts with conditioning contexts such as Canada’s multicultural ideology. In the first of three case studies, I explore how ethnic and age identities were contested through sounding and listening in a Chinese nursing home. The second case study focuses on an apartment where queer immigrants gathered for respite from the palpable heteronormativity and ii homophobia of Toronto’s Chinese diaspora. The final case study follows a young woman as she aurally forged diasporic intimacy in ethnic retail spaces, a boarding house, and a kitchen. Each case study considers the emergence of a particular kind of diasporic subjectivity through accumulations of everyday sonic practices where mediations between public and private, and collectivity and individuality occur. Re-orienting toward the cumulative effects of everyday life, this dissertation reveals how diasporic “homes” can be unsettling and fractured. It also shows, by the same token, how senses of belonging are born out of continuous negotiations, and should not be taken for granted. iii Acknowledgments I thank my friends—or, in ethnographic parlance, my interlocutors—from Sinophone Toronto for their friendship and the gift of their stories. Only some appeared in this dissertation, but every person’s impact is palpable in my work and my life. I am especially grateful to the group of friends featured in chapter 3, who taught me lessons of (be)longing that ripple beyond these pages. My heartfelt gratitude goes to formal and informal mentors for their wisdom and unflagging patience. My supervising committee at the University of Toronto was a constellation of guiding stars; each member has shown me a version of what it means to be a rigorous and compassionate scholar. I thank my supervisor, Joshua Pilzer, for all the practical and philosophical guidance. I also thank him for modeling unwavering convictions in empathy, curiosity, and imagination, which have inspired and oriented me in more ways than I had known were possible. To me, he has truly been a King Car Whiskey kind of advisor: complex, creative, and among the best any one could ask for despite a relatively short time in the barrel. Through incisive and thoughtful comments, Farzaneh Hemmasi has encouraged and animated my at- times experimental pursuits while keeping me firmly on the ground. She has taught me by example how to truly support a project, and has been a vital influence. I am similarly indebted to Jeff Packman for steadfast advocacy of this project and for his theoretical acumen, to which I have always aspired. I thank Ju Hui Judy Han for her perspectives from cultural geography, and for showing me that a well-told story can be politically and affectively powerful, and consequently, efficacious. I am deeply grateful to Deborah Wong for the engaged and generative feedback propelling me to think deeper and further. As well, I thank Robin Elliot for productive comments iv that helped situating the dissertation in the Canadian context. I would also like to acknowledge the influence of James Kippen, who has been instrumental in my training as an ethnomusicologist. Many others loom in this dissertation, and I owe each a lasting debt that I vow to pay forward. I thank the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the Government of Ontario, the University of Toronto and its Faculty of Music, and U of T’s Canadian Studies Graduate Student Network for supporting this work. I would also like to thank the nursing home featured in chapter 2 for allowing me to conduct research there. Other constituents of my proverbial village include members of my Ph.D. cohort (variously known as the Brohort, the Brahort, and the much preferred gender-neutral Brewhort around the Faculty of Music): Patrick Nickleson, Rebekah Lobosco Gilli, Caitlin Martinkus, Edward Wright, Gabriela Jiménez, and September Russell. This dissertation would not have been possible without the exchange of ideas, aspirations, drafts, and ales with each of them. They were and still are an integral part of my education. My heartfelt gratitude also goes to fellow graduate students in the ethnomusicology program for indefatigable collegiality and community ‘round and under the table—especially Nate Renner, “diss sis” Vanessa Thacker, and Alia O’Brien. I thank Jeremy Strachan for his generosity, friendship, and spare bicycle parts, particularly in the early stages of my doctoral work. Robin Sutherland-Harris and the rest of the SGS writing group are similarly appreciated, for the camaraderie as I inched toward the finishing line. Beyond the academic circles, I am grateful to Sebastian Cushing and Sarah Riegler, both for the creative nourishments that kept me sane, and for their warm tolerance of my deadlines- inspired quirks. I am similarly thankful to various others on Dupont Street who have crucially enlivened my thinking, whether by caffeinations or conversations. v The ultimate gratitude goes to the people who taught me my earliest and most profoundly lasting lessons about home and all of its richness, complexity, and splendor. The Chung clan—my grandparents, aunts, and cousins on the maternal side—has been the bedrock of love and nurturance that stretched effortlessly from Taiwan to Toronto. I thank my parents, Rachel and Jeffrey, for their love and for instilling in me a faith in the good of people and (perhaps unknowingly) a penchant for the Socratic method. Last and far from the least, I thank Yu Alice Wang, my sister, dear friend, sounding board, voice of reason, and fellow adventurer, for consistently reminding me to keep a sense of wonder about this world. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 10 1 Sinophone Toronto and the Canadian Multiculturalism ............................................... 14 1.1 A brief history of the Chinese in Toronto ................................................................ 14 1.2 Canadian Multiculturalism as a Conditioning Context .......................................... 21 1.3 Moving beyond the Chinese diaspora ..................................................................... 26 2 The Ethnomusicology of Diaspora ................................................................................. 29 3 Making Do ...................................................................................................................... 35 4 Homes ............................................................................................................................. 38 4.1 Home as an orientation ........................................................................................... 38 4.2 Jia: Home in Chinese ............................................................................................... 46 5 Sounding and listening beyond music ............................................................................ 47 5.1 Note on the term “soundscape” ............................................................................... 51 6 Fieldwork Methods ......................................................................................................... 52 6.1 Personal background ............................................................................................... 53 6.2 “Data” and documentations .................................................................................... 57 7 Chapter outline ............................................................................................................... 60 Chapter 2 Technologies of Song and Aging in a Chinese Nursing Home ................... 63 8 Sounding Chineseness in the Nursing Home ................................................................. 65 8.1 The Centre and Foundation for Chinese