Ethnic and cultural changeability: on Liang Fangs “Long Tuzhu” and his ethnic writing

Liang Fang 梁放 was born in 1953 in Saratok, British Borneo. He is known as “the most important local representative of Sinophone Sarawak writer” and won the 14 th Sinophone Malaysian Literature Award. Lia ng 's most frequently anthologized work is the short story “Long Tuzhu 龙吐珠 which is similar to the famous short story “La z i Fu 拉子妇 ” by Li Yongping 李永平 as it is also about an unscrupulous Chinese man who ends up abandoning an indigenous wom a n. However, as pas t critics have pointed out, “Long Tuzhu”, written from the perspective of the victim, is more profound and has more tension compared with “Lazi Fu”. This article focuses on "Long Tuzhu", while also discussing Liang's other works, to analyse his ethnic thou gh t: How does Liang write or problematise ethnic? What kind of ethnic imagination and thinking does he provide? Sinophone/Xenophone Studies, which highlights ethnic and cultural alterity and changeability, can be used to analyses “Long Tuzhu” Tuzhu”, as it is abou t the identity problem of a mixed blood protagonist. However, Sinophone/Xenophone Studies does not concretely describe how this change happens; this article will argue it with a close reading of “Long Tuzhu” and Liang's other works which emphasizes the pos it ive sense of racial identity and the power of sentiment. Lastly, this article briefly comments on the difficulties of ethnic changeability and the limitations inherent in Liang’s ethnic thinking and writing.