“I was ashamed of my mother's accent.” When Céline, who was born in France to a Mongolian mother and French father, looks back on her early days at school she remembers that she tended to ask for her father to come and collect her. “As soon as I started going to class I no longer wanted to speak Mongolian,” recalls this 24-year-old artist who grew up in the small town of Redon in Brittany in western France and who now lives in Paris. “I got rid of everything Asian-related so I'd seem as white as possible. I was, for example, very interested in Anglo-Saxon culture and I got close to my father.” This eradication of a part of herself was to last for years.
Even so, it did not save her from mocking and insults, still less from prejudice. “When I was in grande section [editor's, note last year of pre-school, at the age of five], the end of year show was based on the musical comedy 'Émilie Jolie'. I already liked singing so I took part in the auditions. On the way out I was gently told that I couldn't play Émilie because she was blonde with blue eyes. I didn't want to go to auditions for a long time after that,” she says. Céline also recalls the horror she felt as a teenager during an episode of the television talent show 'La Nouvelle Star' in which one of the judges, jazz musician André Manoukian, made fun of a Korean candidate who sang the famous song 'La Vie en rose' with an accent.
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To racists, all Asians look alike. People who are Asiatic in appearance are habitually assumed to be Chinese. “In the streets I was questioned mockingly with 'Ni Hao' [editor's note, 'hello' in Mandarin] or with calls of 'Made in China',” she says.
At middle school one of her brothers, Jamba, who was born in Mongolia from her mother's first marriage, also suffered discrimination as well as unjustified police checks. His response to such behaviour is blunt, sometimes violent. “I didn't want to be part of the cliché of Asian docility and smiles. Even today I get involved in fights when reacting to racist comments,” he says.
For Céline, issues over her looks manifested themselves in a different way when she started attending middle school. “In the corridors boys from the third year [editor's note, year 10 in the UK and ninth grade in the US] started to call me 'Katsuni', a reference to the porn film actress. When I got home I found out about the videos. I was hurt and couldn't see the resemblance. Yet I was called this nickname every day. They also sent me messages on Facebook. One day I accepted a video call from one of these boys. He asked me to take my clothes off. I was eleven years old.”
When she was in the fifth year - year 8 in the UK and seventh grade in the US – the fetishization of her Asian features became even more pronounced, both through continuing references to pornographic content and through degrading remarks such as “you're beautiful for an Asiatic” and “she's fuckable”. Céline says: “If I had gone through puberty as a white girl it would definitely have been less hardcore.” As she grew up, this hyper-sexualisation had a cost, and an impact on her personal life. She was wary of people, afraid they might have a fetish about her physique. “I had this fear when I met my last boyfriend. When I shared my fears with him he was shocked. It has created a lot of mistrust, even within friendships,” she says.
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But how can one rebuild oneself when the ostracism that one has experienced from outside also exists within? At her French grandfather's funeral in 2020 Céline realised that to his side of the family she was seen as a “foreigner”. At about the same time Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had decided to part company with the British Royal Family, and what was dubbed “Megxit” struck a chord with Céline's own experience. She became aware of the split that occurred between her paternal grandfather, who used to vote for the far-right Front National (now Rassemblement National), and her parents. “My mother stopped speaking to my grandfather, partly because there was too much favouritism towards my cousins,” explains Céline.
Her mother, Khishgee, a geologist in Mongolia and a translator in France, remembers the details. “Céline's grandfather had an impressive collection of books from the 'Martine' collection [editor's note, children's books]. But he used to get in a bad mood when Céline wanted to read them, she had to take one at a time. Then my husband's sister had a girl, and once when we were all gathered around the baby, who was then 18 months old while my daughter was old enough to read, he gave her the entire collection. That was too much, I asked my husband if we could leave,” recalls Céline's mother.
Nonetheless, Khishgee gave the go-ahead when her father-in-law later expressed a wish to accompany her and Céline to Mongolia. But once there, her father-in-law's behaviour annoyed her. “He wasn't respectful towards my nephews. One day I heard an inappropriate joke; another day I surprised him in the process of throwing their ball to the other side of a hill. I'd had enough when, in the yurt, he started to spray one of my nephews in the face with anti-mosquito spray,” says Khishgee. The next morning she took him to an hotel from where he headed back to France a few days later.
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After that, Khishgee had no further contact with her husband's family. But she still remembers the pain of seeing her child suffering. “[Her grandfather] showed very little affection towards her,” she says. This helped undermine Céline's sense of identity and fuelled anxiety and a lack of self-confidence. “I didn't know why people didn't love me and I was afraid of not being loved, without understanding why,” says Céline today.
At the age of 21 Céline received a message on her mobile phone that shook her to the core. Her mother had sent her a document headed: “Chulun [editor's note, the diminutive form of her by now deceased grandmother's first name], letter to Céline.” A former journalist in Mongolia, Chulun had eventually come to France and lived in the family's house at Redon, where for years she shared Celine's room – even though, as her granddaughter knew no Mongolian, the two could not converse. There was an invisible wall between them, with the pair simply communicating through signs and gestures.
Chulun used to leave a few words written in Mongolian within the pages of a book or scattered on the edge of furniture. One day in 2007 she wrote this letter to Céline, though it was only delivered after her death. In it Chulun describes her own solitude - “a kind of isolation from others while still being alive” - and that of the child whom she observed from her wheelchair. Was it her fault?
In the letter Chulun questions her own responsibility but also highlights the responsibility that Céline herself now feels. “Without learning the Mongol language, without discovering Mongolia, and without taking an interest in the Mongolian culture, you will never be able to become yourself,” the woman warns her grandchild in the letter. “Because a half of your body is Mongolian. Without that, you'll be incomplete.”
Full of emotion over the letter, Céline struggles to get her words out. “As a child, racism led me to cut off a part of me, to protect myself. It's because I wanted to integrate that I wasn't interested in either my mother or my grandmother. And they saw that,” she says.
After her paternal grandfather's funeral Céline, by then 22, underwent therapy. “Lockdown had been tough. I had no idea what I was going to talk about but I didn't think I'd been speaking about racism at that stage,” she says. It should be noted that the arrival of the Covid 19 virus from China led to a massive rise in number of anti-Asian acts.
Céline made progress thanks to her therapy. “I understood why there was so much hatred against me and where this constant need for validation came from,” she says. “I decided to discover the part of me that I'd killed. By accepting that, things linked to Mongolia that had been buried re-emerged.”
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Céline enrolled at the language and culture university the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), and took up the traditional Mongolian stringed instrument known as the yatga. Little by little the memories came back, of her mother's songs in her bedroom, of the festivals where she sang with Mongol artists at Guer in Brittany. “I grew up in the Brocéliande Forest [in Brittany] until I was eight,” says Céline. “When I came to Redon I left all those memories behind. Since it has all resurfaced I feel like I have more energy. When I realise that the Mongols go through winters where it's -30 °C, I tell myself that I have huge inner resources.”
Céline has been involved in music for two years now. She has transformed her sense of shame into pride, and now knows how to counter the thinking that had held her back. She plays the guitar, the piano and also the yatga. On stage she sometimes dresses in traditional Mongolian costume: long flowing tunics like those worn by her grandmother Chulun in family photos.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michel Streeter