POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE Popul.

Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) Published online 30 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/psp.578

Becoming a Father, Missing a Wife: Chinese Transnational Families and the Male Experience of Lone Parenting in Canada
Johanna L. Waters* Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

ABSTRACT This paper explores mens embodied experiences of transnational families. Recent research has stressed the gendered nature of transnationalism, exposing the patriarchal structures and unequal power relations that exist within contemporary migrant households. While there is a greater awareness of the female experience of transnational migration (both as the migrant and the person left behind), we still have little parallel knowledge of men. When the male experience has been studied, it is commonly in the context of their mobility (and in the absence of their wife and children), and disembodied images of power dominate these accounts. This paper examines immigrant households from Hong Kong and Taiwan in Canada, where the male has been left behind to take care of the home and children, and his wife has returned to East Asia to pursue her career. In the process, mens lives have been completely transformed from successful businessman to homemaker and from distant father to lone parent, giving moral, emotional, and practical guidance to their children in the absence of the mother and extended family. The paper highlights the diverse nature of gendered experiences of transnational families and the varied forms that these arrangements can take. It also makes an important conceptual point about common

understandings of transnationalism as something that privileged migrants enact strategically at certain stages in the life course. I argue that the experience of transnationalism can also, in fact, change migrants their objectives and their sense of self. Transnationalism can be transformative in the lives of ostensibly strategic immigrant families. Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 30 October 2007; revised 3 March 2009; accepted 3 March 2009

Keywords: transnationalism; lone fathers; male experiences; gender roles; astronaut families

INTRODUCTION

* Correspondence to: Johanna L. Waters, Department of Geography, Roxby Building, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZT, UK. E-mail: J.L.Waters@liv.ac.uk

ransnational forms of migration increasingly involve the long-distance separation of husbands and wives, parents and children. Migrants and their relations, through lived, embodied experiences, are actively redening concepts such as marriage, parenthood, and family. In some cities, including Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, Brisbane, and Auckland, during the 1990s and early 2000s, reports of households (unofcially) headed by lone females became almost commonplace, challenging established notions of the immigrant family (Man, 1993; Ho et al., 1997; Pe-Pua et al., 1998; Waters, 2002; Chiang, 2006). Throughout this period, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand had experienced a substantial inux of relatively wealthy business immigrants (investors and entrepreneurs) and their
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64 dependents from Hong Kong and, later, Taiwan. Yet, immigrant households did not follow the usual pattern of settlement. After immigration, the male head would often return to East Asia to continue with his business or professional career, leaving his wife and children behind in the host country for an indenite period of time. These so-called astronaut households became emblematic of the contemporary exibility of the Chinese family. They were seen as hypermodern by virtue of their engagement with a highly strategic form of transnationalism, which included a heavy reliance on disembodied technologies (telephone, email, fax, digital photography, etc.) for maintaining the coherence of the family at a distance. Still, several writers have argued that the astronaut family also re-inscribed and reinforced traditional (patriarchal) gender roles and relations (Man, 1993; Ong, 1999). As Pe-Pua et al. (1998) have observed, the Chinese term astronaut is itself gendered denoting both frequent yers and men without wives. The return migrants were invariably men. Consequently, it was the woman who relinquished her career (and thereby her economic independence) to remain with her children in the new country for the good of the family. There were potentially regressive elements to the hypermodern astronaut family, and the relative sacrices made by women (as opposed to men) in other transnational contexts have also been widely observed (e.g. Yeoh and Willis, 2004; Huang and Yeoh, 2005; Parreas, 2005; Shen, 2005; cf. Hardill, 2004). In this paper, I want to introduce an example that deviates from the typical pattern of male mobility and female dependence, demonstrating the ways in which individual migrant stories may challenge commonly held assumptions and stereotypes. In a small and generally invisible number of immigrant households, men have relinquished their careers, through migration, to look after the home and children while their wives have returned to East Asia to continue with their career/business pursuits. This paper examines the embodied experiences of these men as they adjust to life, in the absence of their wives, in Vancouver, Canada. In so doing, it contributes to recent debates around transnationalism in two main ways. First, I provide an unusual perspective on the split-family formation, presenting a mans experience of immigration and
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J. L. Waters settlement. Empirically, the experiences of men within transnational families are still, relatively, unknown (Yeoh et al., 2005). Where men are depicted, they are generally represented in particular ways as mobile, masculine and patriarchal, and eschewing of virtually all domestic responsibilities (Yeoh and Willis, 1999, 2004; cf. Asis et al., 2004). In contrast, the situation presented in this paper offers an alternative insight into the embodied male experience, highlighting the variety of forms that transnational arrangements can take. The paper also takes issue with the way in which transnationalism has commonly been conceptualised in the literature to date, particularly in relation to elite forms of mobility. Transnationalism is usually understood as something that migrants do a highly strategic and calculated decision rather than as something that profoundly impacts upon migrants lives, often changing them irrevocably. Transnationalism may appear, on some levels, to be a useful strategy, but splitting the family unit has unforeseen consequences. Migrants are confronted with hitherto unimagined situations (social, emotional, and material), and are forced, through gradual inculcation, to adapt accordingly (HondagneuSotelo and Avila, 1997; Ley, 1999; Kobayashi and Preston, 2007). When adjustment is too much to bear, households can breakdown. In most cases, however, individuals display signicant resilience, openness, and willingness to change as will be exemplied in this paper. In all cases, transnationalism cannot simply be seen as something that migrants do or enact (according to their will) as an expression of control, but should also be perceived as something that can, and does, exert a degree of control over them, thus changing their lives. Here, I want to highlight the indeterminacy of Chinese transnational strategies and the way in which the embodied experience of transnationalism can transform objectives, subjectivities, and outcomes. THE GENDERED NATURE OF TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION Research on migration has become increasingly cognisant of the importance of gender, with a parallel growth in the subeld of transnationalism (Boyle, 2002; Pessar and Mahler, 2003). These two strands of work have found common ground
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

Transnational Families and the Male Experience in studies of the role of the family in transnational forms of mobility (Kofman, 2004; Yeoh and Willis, 2004), demonstrating that this migration engages individual household members in different ways (Silvey and Lawson, 1999). The distribution of power within the household is of particular interest one of the objectives of a recent work has been to uncover the extent to which women are oppressed or empowered through transnational household arrangements (e.g. Alicia, 1997; Constable, 2003; Williams, 2005; Chiang, 2006). Yet, while this provides an invaluable corrective to earlier efforts to conceptualise migration (in which the household was perceived as an undifferentiated and largely impenetrable unit), we still as yet do not know enough about the role of different family members in decision making around migration. In particular, the views and experiences of men and children remain underrepresented in recent accounts (Kofman, 2004; Yeoh et al., 2005). The absence of research on mens experiences is particularly notable. As Yeoh and Willis (2004: 149) have written: the primary concern in the burgeoning literature has been to (re)instate women their roles and subjectivities in the multi-stranded relations at home or the place of sojourn, or in sustaining diverse networks spanning vast spaces. However: There has been little parallel work on men [. . .] as conscious gendered beings tracing new maps of desire and attachment as they make multiple, circular, return or provisional journeys across transnational space. (Yeoh and Willis, 2004: 149) Mahler and Pessar (2006) have argued that many scholars purport to write about gender but in fact only write about women men are an absent presence in many of these accounts, inuential but rarely given a voice. PARENTING, CARE AT A DISTANCE, AND DOMESTIC REPRODUCTION In explorations into the social reproduction of migrant households, the notion of transnational mothering evokes both the gendered and emotive nature of migration (Alicia, 1997; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila, 1997). Researchers have shown how female migrants attempt to
Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

65 maintain close personal relationships with their children at a distance (Zontini, 2004; Parreas, 2005) and how the meanings of motherhood are rearranged to accommodate these spatial and temporal separations (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila, 1997: 548). Other research on immigrant families has described the experiences of women as they come to terms with the parenting role in a new and unfamiliar setting (Man, 1997; Waters, 2002; Dyck and McLaren, 2004). The focus has very much been on the role of the woman as a mother, underpinned by the assumption that she, ultimately, is the primary and most important caregiver. In contrast, there has been a conspicuous lack of research on fathers in immigrant settings. Pribilsky (2004) examined the parenting experiences of both women and men in the context of male migration from Ecuador to New York. However, in this example, fathers are absent from the household for the majority of the time and fathering is more symbolic than actual (they build only weak relationships with their children). Parreass (2005) work on the long-distancing mothering strategies of Filipina migrants touches indirectly on the experiences of the men that remain behind in the Philippines to care for the house and children. She says: Yet, migrant womens economic contributions do not necessarily prompt a reconguration of the familys gender division of labour. The men left behind, the so-called househusbands, rarely do housework [. . . -] other women usually took over the work left behind by migrant mothers [. . .]. Fathers stay out of the picture, often avoiding any nurturing responsibilities by relocating to another island in the Philippines or, if around their family, by never asking about their childrens emotional well-being. (Parreas, 2005: 332) Asis et al. (2004: 206) have observed that when men are left behind in the home country, the reproductive work previously managed by their wives is transferred to the husband. However, in all but one case they examined, the men continued to engage in paid employment (Asis et al., 2004: 206), thereby not actually relinquishing the breadwinner role. There is no precedent that I can nd for studying men that are left behind by their wives following international migration to become full-time
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

66 carers, looking after the home and children in the absence of any direct support from a female family member (for example the mother-in-law or a sister). Such is the case for the men examined in this paper. TRANSNATIONAL STRATEGIES AND THE LIFE COURSE While some research has uncovered the unequal power dynamics inherent in transnational families, the strategic nature of transnationalism has also been strongly emphasised in other works (Ong, 1999; Willis and Yeoh, 2000; Waters, 2006, 2008). Migrant households are seen to deploy transnational dispersals and relocations with particular objectives in mind. Often, these objectives are ultimately concerned with improving the welfare and/or status of the family, either in the country of origin or in the country of destination. This sense of transnationalism as a strategy is particularly strong in a number of recent papers highlighting the close relationship between transnational migration and life course stages of different family members (Ley and Kobayashi, 2005; Kobayashi and Preston, 2007). The work of Kobayashi and Preston (2007) on Hong Kong immigrants to Canada shows how transnational practices evolve through the life course in highly heteronormative ways. Canada is seen as an ideal destination not only because of the quality of education but because Canada offers a lifestyle that is more relaxed, where mothers can devote more time to caring for children (Kobayashi and Preston, 2007: 165). Fathers become astronauts and return to Hong Kong to work before retiring in Canada. Kobayashi and Preston (2007) compellingly demonstrate the circularity (and lack of nality) characterising transnational migration. However, I would also add that experiences of transnational arrangements can in themselves shape life priorities and future trajectories. This notion that the experience of transnational migration may transform familial objectives is implicit in literature that has highlighted the costs of transnationalism for different family members (e.g. Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila, 1997; Man, 1997), but has rarely been explicitly addressed. A focus on strategies can possibly obscure the transformative potential of the experience of transnationalism.
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J. L. Waters CHINESE ENTREPRENEURS AND MENS EXPERIENCES OF TRANSNATIONALISM In their analysis of Singapores go regional policy, Yeoh and Willis (1999) demonstrate the masculine nature of much transnational migration. They focus on skilled professional and managerial migration from Singapore to China, where the husband relocates abroad while the wife essentially becomes a single parent remaining at home in charge of running the household and caring for the family (Yeoh and Willis, 1999: 362). They write: While men are associated with mobility and agility to grapple with newly uid and somewhat erratic forms of transnational capital, women are often positioned [. . .] as stabilising forces of the home (Yeoh and Willis, 1999: 359). In this analysis, masculinity is equated with mobility, and femininity is equated with stasis. In this account, as in many others dealing with gender and Chinese transnational families, discussions of men adopt an implicitly critical tone. Men are seen to avoid or shun domestic responsibilities in pursuit of their own careers whereas women have to relinquish their employment while taking up the role of housekeeper and lone parent. Many of these discussions highlight the frequency of sexual indelity on the part of the husband (Lang and Smart, 2002; Yeoh and Willis, 2004; Shen, 2005). The return of the man invariably indicates the cessation of the womans social life and the reinstatement of a more traditional, patriarchal family structure (Waters, 2002). All in all, when men are discussed, it is rarely in positive terms. Part of the reason for this, perhaps, may be that men are seldom the object of study they are examined only to the extent that they impact on womens lives. As Yeoh et al. (2005: 313) have written: It is time for more work on Chinese transnational families to focus on mens experiences whether as migrants or as left behind fathers to obtain their view of whether the Chinese family does indeed, as others claim, operate effectively over transnational space. One of the aims of this paper, then, was to make the men within transnational families the object of study in their own right.
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

Transnational Families and the Male Experience METHODS In this paper, the men are both migrants and leftbehind fathers. They are struggling to cope with the day-to-day difculties associated with immigration to an unfamiliar place as well as the stresses of a new social role as (lone) parent, nancial dependent, and housekeeper. It draws on in-depth interviews with four lone husbands in Vancouver three from Taiwan and one from Hong Kong (see Table 1) as part of a larger study of 28 astronaut families (see Waters, 2002, 2003b). In this larger study, in-depth interviews with family members were supplemented by many informal discussions and interactions with members of the community who deal with immigrants on a daily basis. The families studied were all business-class immigrants who had come to Canada in the late 1990s, when such migration was extremely common. Thus, although only four interviews are sourced directly in the paper, its insights are informed by a far larger body of empirical work and an intimate understanding of this immigrant community. The men were recruited for this study in two ways. The three from Taiwan were all members of the Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society (TCCS) that was established in 1991 in response to the large inux of immigrants to Canada. It was set up to offer support to immigrant families, and its staff had direct experience of a wide variety of forms that immigrant families can take, including the split-household astronaut family. One of its support groups, with only four members at the time, provided an important venue for men, whose wives had returned to Taiwan, to share stories and advice. Staff at the TCCS suggested that I might like to talk to these men about their experiences, and interviews
Table 1. Research participants characteristics. Name Stephen Daniel Henry Freddie Place of origin Taiwan Hong Kong Taiwan Taiwan Years in Vancouver 3 6 5 2 Wifes employment Owner of insurance company Family business Not known Participants previous employment Assistant vice-president of computing rm Family business Business executive Children

67 were arranged with three of them one on the premises of the TCCS and the other two in a cafe and community centre in other parts of Vancouver. I met the interviewee from Hong Kong through his wife, who I taught English to at a local church. She told me of her own familys unusual arrangement, where she returns to Hong Kong for half the year, leaving her husband in Vancouver to look after their daughter and maintain the home. Through my involvement with this family, I also spent some time helping the daughter with aspects of her school work. In this way, I met the father/ husband, and an interview was arranged. These in-depth and revealing interviews offer a unique and informative look into mens embodied experiences of transnational families. In what follows, a number of key themes emerging from the interviews will be discussed, including: the reasons for immigration and the transnational family arrangement, tensions arising from this arrangement, post-migration changes in both relationships and lifestyle, and the related issue of the transformation of mens self-identity. REASONS FOR IMMIGRATION, TRANSNATIONALISM, AND THE WOMANS RETURN Three types of reason for this unusual transnational arrangement need to be distinguished the reason for the familys initial decision to immigrate to Canada, the reason for the adoption of a transnational household strategy, and the reason for the womans return to Hong Kong or Taiwan to work. Beginning with the motivations underlying immigration to Canada, all four men described the importance of their childrens education. Two suggested that the education system

Machinery company Mechanical engineer employee

Two sons, aged 16 years and 18 years Daughter, aged 14 years Son and daughter, aged 21 years and 23 years Two sons, aged 13 years and 18 years
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

Copyright 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

68 in Taiwan was too tough that their children had failed or were expected imminently to fail at an important stage of schooling. For Daniel, Canada offered a more relaxed education for his daughter: DL: The education system in Hong Kong [is] very pressured. You know, their system is different, a little bit. They have so [much] homework for the kids. They have too much pressure. JW: Do you think thats a bad thing? DL: Hard to say bad or not. But, I think, for us I think I prefer to give them, like, more freedom to study what theyre interested in. (male, in his 40s, Hong Kong, rst generation immigrant, Vancouver) These ndings are consistent with a far broader survey of Hong Kong immigrants, for whom education was the foremost priority in the decision to relocate their family to Canada (Waters, 2005; Kobayashi and Preston, 2007). In Hong Kong and Taiwan, education is pivotal in the social reproduction of middle-class families, and a Western education is seen as particularly valuable in this regard (Ong, 1999; Waters, 2008). With respect to the reasons underpinning transnational arrangements, research has provided differing explanations. Ley (1999) suggests that the return of the husband/father to East Asia to work is a reection of unexpected business failure in Canada. In contrast, my own research has found that the astronaut family was a longer term strategy, usually planned well before immigration actually occurred (Waters, 2003b). Likewise, in the particular case of these four families, they had assumed that their investments in Canada would not lead to lucrative business ventures, despite their status as business immigrants. Because of widespread rumours of business failure among economic immigrants to Vancouver (Ley, 1999, 2004), they had known what to expect prior to coming to Canada. It was always anticipated, then, that one adult would return to East Asia to work the astronaut family had been presumed in advance of migration, enabling households to maximise the ongoing accumulation of economic capital (back in East Asia) while at the same time allowing children the opportunity to acquire cultural
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J. L. Waters capital through education in Canada (Waters, 2003a). In three out of the four cases I examined, the womans superior earning power vis--vis the mans was given as the main reason for the wifes return to East Asia. In one sense, this represents a highly strategic and rational nancial decision, unencumbered by gender norms or other social considerations. Freddie, for example, said of this: Before we came here [. . .] she earned more money than me. [JW: More money?] More money. So she thought maybe me going to Canada is better for my whole family (male, in his 40s, from Taiwan, rst generation immigrant, Vancouver). We should not underestimate, however, the extent to which this decision has negatively impacted upon mens sense of their own masculinity (at least initially). This will be examined below. DEALING WITH TENSIONS: CHALLENGES TO IDENTITY Clearly, this type of arrangement, where the female is effectively the breadwinner and the husband the homemaker, offers up some challenges to mens sense of identity and self-worth. One interviewee, Stephen, seemed to have the most difcult time with these adjustments. He described how they impacted upon various spheres of his life, beginning with his role as a parent: Two years ago I got a bad communication with my kids, and they fought against [me]. Because in Taiwan the father has got a very good authority [he] is powerful within his family. But not here! (male, in his 40s, from Taiwan, rst generation immigrant, Vancouver) Since coming to Canada, he has found that his authority within the family, particularly in relation to his children, has been contested. More difcult to face, however, has been the other factors that have challenged his identity as a man. He listed three primary concerns related to this: One is, umm, I didnt make any money. This is a very big change for a man and . . . I thought, Im nobody. When I make money I think I am somebody, but while I didnt make money I lost my self-esteem. The second is . . . I have
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

Transnational Families and the Male Experience no job so my daily life is empty. The third thing is that I have no sex life. This makes me more difcult to live [with]. All of the men faced these fundamental changes following their immigration to Vancouver, and the loss of self-esteem that Stephen describes was clearly a common afiction. This is something rarely discussed in relation to elite migrant men (cf. Ley, 1999; Walton-Roberts and Pratt, 2005). The unusual nature of their experiences perhaps made them harder to bear women in this astronaut situation are part of a much wider community, with whom they can share their experiences (Waters, 2002). In contrast, the men nd that they are largely alone. While women are often able to turn to other immigrant women for comfort and support, men are unable to do the same. As Stephen here suggests, lone men can be seen by others (both men and women) as potential sexual predators, particularly in a small community such as that of the Chinese in Vancouver: I think most of the people consider I am a very dangerous man! . . . Because I am single . . . You know in Taiwan, it is human nature that the man is looking for adultery if he has no wife at home. But not me. And I am very sensitive very careful to make a call to any friend who is female. [. . .] And you know the lonely wives can call each other very freely. This perception of lone men as sexual predators has consequential impacts upon their ability to socialise within the wider immigrant community which is dominated by lone women compounding a sense of isolation and even ostracism that immigration may anyway evoke. Another interviewee, Henry, told me how he has managed to turn his rare status as a lone man to his (and others) advantage, running an advice clinic at a local immigrant centre catering to women attempting to deal with difcult teenage children in the absence of their husbands. He is able, he said, to offer a valuable mans perspective on the issue of parenting. POST-MIGRATION CHANGES IN FAMILIAL RELATIONS Tensions and internal conicts such as these have had to be weighed against the benets and
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69 advantages that accrued from this transnational arrangement. Daniel, who spent half the year in Vancouver as his wife ran their business in Hong Kong, justied his decision to remain behind (and, consequently, to sacrice a proportion of his income) in terms of his desire to maintain a close relationship with his teenage daughter and only child. He emphasised the importance of the fatherchild relationship, recognising that this would suffer through long periods apart. As I have suggested, the literature on transnational families even that which focuses on gender rarely acknowledges the importance of the fathers bond with his children, and his expectations and wishes in respect of this. For Daniel, maintaining a close relationship with his daughter does have its (nancial) costs, as he describes here: Of course, we cant do the business much like we did before because [. . .] when [we] were in Hong Kong before, she [his wife] takes care of all the production so I can travel a lot to nd more business. But now I cant because I want to stay with my daughter. Actually, I can tell you some more things. Before I come here I close some of my business in China. Yes. Before we come we had a trading company in China for the cars vehicles. I have some bakery shops in Beijing this chain store eight stores. And then we have other small restaurants in China. They all closed because we want to immigrate here. (male, in his 40s, from Hong Kong, rst generation immigrant, Vancouver) These nancial sacrices had to be carefully weighed against the benets of immigrating (for his daughters education) and of spending time with his daughter. He said: I still feel [it was] worth [it] to do that because, umm, the money I can earn maybe next 10 years after my daughter has nished her studies. Then I can still make my money back. But if I lose the relation with her maybe I never get it back, even if I have so much money. All of the men talked of the pride they have felt in their achievements as fathers. For Henry, his familys move to Vancouver initiated a change to his whole life: I think I [have] gathered a new life. In Taiwan I worked almost 24 years [for] accomplishments that belong to my boss not come to me. I come to here three or four years,
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70 I am with my children and [. . .] I see that the accomplishments are down to me (male, in his 50s, from Taiwan, rst generation immigrant, Vancouver). I noted earlier that Stephen had faced signicant challenges to his authority as a father and head of the household since migrating. He has reacted to this by changing himself: I change a lot. I improve myself to be low prole to be very communicative with them [the children]. He continued: You have to [be] considerate about their situation, their feelings, their desires, what they want to do. Dont always say no. [. . .] We can say yes and but. We can go [out] together with them to do the same things and then fully understand [their] activities. [. . .]. But the most important [thing] is to change the fathers atttude. In stark contrast to Parreass (2005) ndings, these men showed signicant concern for their childrens emotional well-being. Their willingness to adapt and to change in situ cannot be overemphasised this aspect of the male experience of transnational families has been neglected in extant accounts of transnationalism that have stressed strategy, mobility, and power in relation to elite men. Rarely have their (positive) interactions with their children been discussed. Surprisingly, and in contrast, men reported little change in their relationship with their wives since immigration and their subsequent separation. Stephen raised the issue of the lack of sexual intimacy between himself and his wife, during their times apart, and the frustration he has felt. However, on the whole, it would seem that couples were used to enduring substantial separations before migration a consequence of long working hours and a great deal of travel away from home. I asked Daniel, for example, if there had been any noticeable change in his relationship with his wife since he had come to Vancouver. He replied: Not much change. Not much change, because she used to be away from me and I used to be travelling a lot so for us we dont feel any change even. Laughs. The other men reported similar feelings. RECONCILING TENSIONS AND CHANGE As the literature suggests, patriarchal norms still prevail in middle-class Chinese families (Man,
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J. L. Waters 1993; Ong, 1999). Men are assumed to be the breadwinners, and mobility is related to the progression of mens careers. Amongst these particular men, then, for whom these assumptions do not hold, migration to Vancouver has necessarily initiated a wholesale transformation of their lives. In part, this transformation can be related to a growing sense of rootedness and stasis. Daniel said: Before we moved here I am still travelling a lot [. . .] more travelling than right now. Yeah, because my wife [was] in the ofce [and] she can take care of things in there, so Ive been travelling almost half of my time outside of Hong Kong travel in China, Europe, America [. . .] the production [is] in China, my ofce [is] in Hong Kong and all the customers in Europe and America, so I am travelling a lot. Here he invokes the link made in Yeoh and Williss (1999) work between mobility and masculinity. In contrast, he describes his experience of life in Vancouver in terms of stability and relaxation. He said: [I have found it] very strange [. . .]. I feel quite good because I have a very relaxed time here really really rest here. I do just what I want here. Stephen, whose negative experiences of immigration (in terms of loss of income, job, and sexual intimacy) were outlined above, describes how he resolved these, after a short while settling in to life in Vancouver, through education: But after six months I go to school. During those six months, every morning, every afternoon and I study every evening, because we have a test every morning! [JW: So you started school to learn English?] Yeah. Learning took the place of my job in my daily life. These ndings resonate with the very similar experiences of lone women in the more usually congured female-headed astronaut households (Waters, 2002). With a void in their lives where work once was, the men decided to go back to school, learning English as well as a range of other subjects, both practical and academic. This was not for any obvious material or nancial gain they seemed to embrace learning for learnings sake. Their education and other leisure activities became part of a complex daily family routine, as Henry here describes: In Taiwan I get up at six oclock very early. Here at the same time because my wife [is]
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

Transnational Families and the Male Experience not here, I have to take breakfast and make the lunch for the two kids . . . and bring them to school. And in the morning I then go to the English class [for] the rst year [. . .]. Afternoon, between two and three, [I] go to the . . . community centre to swim. Just the week day because [at] the weekends, Saturday and Sunday, I have other plans . . . Saturday my daughter learns the ute so I take [her there] and pick her up. And I use Saturday and Sunday to do shopping . . . and then go home and then cook the dinner. And sometimes in the evening I have the meeting [with a parents group at his childrens school]. Stephens routine similarly involves juggling his childrens needs with his own plans: Every morning . . . my children go to school and then I go to my school. I study English, such as pronunciation, social studies, literature, conversation and computer skills. And accounting, law . . . yes, something like that . . . and economics. And then after school I went back [home] about four oclock, and that time my children went home as well. In terms of understanding the complex transformation that has occurred, as a consequence of transnationalism, in the lives of these men, the importance of ostensibly mundane domestic tasks should not be overlooked. Taking care of a home has meant learning skills, such as cooking and cleaning, from scratch and without female guidance. Stephen is an exception. He tried and failed at cooking, as the following exchange from his interview revealed. JW: [You do all] the cooking? SL: No cooking. JW: No cooking? Who does the cooking? SL: I buy the food from the Chinese family in the neighbourhood! JW: Can you explain? SL: Well, umm, in my neighbourhood there is a Chinese . . . Taiwanese family . . .. JW: And she cooks for you? SL: Yes, I brought the food from her house. JW: Everyday? SL: Every evening. Every evening. Yeah.
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71 JW: So you dont cook at all? SL: Yeah, I failed to cook. They [children] mocked my meals this is a C-. There is no Band A! So I quit because they were growing up and Im afraid of their nutrition. Fear over his childrens health (rather than laziness), he stressed, is the reason why he no longer cooks anything. The changes that I have described here all indicate a transformation in the mens sense of self. As Elmhirst (2007) has observed, the links between work, providing for ones family, and masculine identity are powerful and enduring (see also Walton-Roberts and Pratt, 2005). The men interviewed for this project stressed how making money is generally deemed central to a mans sense of worth. And yet, their experiences of immigration and transnationalism would seem to have changed this at least in respect of themselves. Walton-Roberts and Pratt (2005: 187), writing about Sikh immigrant men in Canada, suggest that they often attempt to return home quickly and frequently to maintain status in the home country that was destabilised by migration. In contrast to this, Stephen told me that he now wants to stay in Vancouver and not return to Taiwan as he had originally planned. I asked him if he would not make more money in Taiwan, and he said: Get more money? Of course! I then asked him why, then, did he want to stay? Good question [. . .]. What is your denition of success? [. . .] Most of the men would say reputation, wealth and power. Those three things were my objects that I am looking for in Taiwan. I . . . I already achieved very good of that. When I was immersed in the study of literature [in Canada] English literature I found a lot of positive concepts, interesting values and something very healthy in the life. And one day I asked my tennis friend he was retired six months ago I asked him, what is your denition of success?, and he said happily playing tennis, rst one, and positive concepts. And he is so humorous playing tennis everybody likes him. So my values are changing in these three years. I almost lost my health three years ago because I was looking for wealth, reputation and power very, very hard. Very, very hard I worked almost 12 hours every day. I enjoyed it. Laughs. I enjoyed
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

72 it because when you can feel your goals were achieved and your boss likes you and [. . .] youve got the promotions every year . . . Since coming to Vancouver, over the last 3 years, his experiences have fundamentally changed him and his outlook on life. He now values life in wholly different terms. In his spare time he collects fables and distributes them to friends over the Internet. Henry described a remarkably similar change in his own outlook since immigrating. He talked of how in Canada he had started from zero: Because if you start from zero, everything you get is new. That is very important. A lot of people that come here from Taiwan, they dont feel that way. They still bring the old stuff here as well. I was this, I was this, I want to do this and this. They dont realise that its different that here is different. So start from zero here. Similarly, Freddie said: Because in Taiwan we always think about the ofce or business things, we dont think about the valuable things. So after we went to here we must accept the new situation and we must talk to another person . . . We must force us to touch them and know about everything. These men emphasise the human side of privileged forms of migration (see Ley, 1999). Their experiences belie the assumption that transnationalism can be purely strategic, in intent or outcome, but will always have unanticipated and often surprising personal consequences. CONCLUSION In research on wealthy immigrants from East Asia in Vancouver, Ley (1999) described their suffering as a consequence of business failure and underemployment following relocation to Canada. Interestingly, men are seen to suffer much more than women they experience extreme embarrassment and a loss of self-esteem. Ley (1999: 17) writes: there is a fragility connected with this migration cohort that contradicts the widespread public impression, the myth, of deep wealth and vigorous entrepreneurialism, of an all-commanding economic over-class. However, there is also, I would add, signicant strength and willingness to adapt and change, as the men described here have clearly demonstrated. These men have come to value
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J. L. Waters their lives in ways unconnected to wealth and career. This paper has examined the relationship between gender roles and transnational family forms, with an account of an unusual form of immigration. In these astronaut families, and contrary to the normal and widely observed pattern, the husband has stayed behind in the host society to take care of the home and children while his wife has returned to the country of origin to pursue her career. Although we now know a great deal about this larger cohort of migrants, who landed in cities in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand during the 1990s, we still know very little about mens experiences, particularly of parenting. This reects a more general gap in our knowledge about transnational families. In the extant literature, men are often, at best, ignored, and at worst, caricatured (as ambitious, mobile, careerist, patriarchal, and frequently disembodied). Research on transnational businessmen had suggested a high degree of indelity and the avoidance of domestic and parenting tasks. The lone-husbands presented in this paper are hardly representative of the experiences of the wider immigrant cohort. On the contrary, my own research has suggested that, on the whole, astronaut families in Vancouver followed a highly gendered pattern, wherein women sacriced their careers for the good of the family while men continued to work back in East Asia (Waters, 2002), and this has been veried in other more recent work (e.g. Kobayashi and Preston, 2007). However, these examples do serve a useful purpose in that they highlight the variety of transnational family forms. They have exposed the salience of gendered stereotypes around transnational families lone men were seen as potential sexual predators for example, and, unlike the lone women, lacked an obvious social-support network. The paper has also made an important conceptual point, highlighting the impact that transnationalism can have in shaping the identities and future objectives of wealthy Chinese families. Transnationalism is commonly understood as something that privileged migrants enact strategically at certain stages in the life course. I argue that the experience of transnationalism can also, in fact, change migrants their objectives and their sense of self. Transnationalism can therefore be transformative. For these men, it has irrevocably changed their lives.
Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp

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Popul. Space Place 16, 6374 (2010) DOI: 10.1002/psp