Chinese South African Navigations of the (Post-)Apartheid City in Ufrieda Ho’s Paper Sons and Daughters

Abstract

Drawing on Michel de Certeau’s conceptualisation of the city space in The Practice of Everyday Life, in conversation with AbdouMaliq Simone’s approach to the African city, this article explores the problem of belonging in Ufrieda Ho’s Paper Sons and Daughters: Growing Up Chinese in South Africa (2011). The text’s navigation of the manifold ascribed and asserted identities of the autobiographical self is made prominent through Ho’s tracing of the traversals of both her father and herself across Johannesburg. In particular, the illegal gambling game of fahfee and its operation become emblematic of the imbrication of Chinese immigrants within the urban space, positioning the figures in the text within the broader historical and literary archive of Johannesburg and thereby asserting a rootedness within the (post-)apartheid city. It highlights the complexity of the relationship between the self and the (post-)apartheid city and the formulations of belonging that arise as a result.

Keywords: Ufrieda Ho, Paper Sons and Daughters, East Asian South African literature