Half Chinese and half Scottish, Kirsteen Zimmern is Eurasian, although you wouldn’t think it to look at her. She gets this reaction all the time, shock and awe from both East and West as she reveals her ‘other side’ by speaking fluent Cantonese. This was among many reasons why, despite being a mother to four and a working barrister, she began assembling The Eurasian Face – a handsome new hardbound book published by Blacksmith, which collects the portrait photos and personal profiles of 70 Hong Kong-based Eurasians of various ages and backgrounds. Focusing on the face may seem odd, but it makes sense to Zimmern, who explains: “It’s the visual aspect that’s really fascinating to most people... there is a distinctive Eurasian look... you can see there’s a thread that joins all Eurasians.” But the first-person commentaries that accompany each photo are important too. Zimmern wanted to give each person a chance to share their thoughts, whilst cataloguing how perceptions have changed over time.

Zimmern discovered that being Eurasian was collectively seen as a positive, that it made them tolerant and accepting. “I didn’t get a single victim,” she proclaims proudly, although the diverse age groups did give different impressions. The elders were still happy to be Eurasian, she says, but there was a hint that their mixed-race had brought them some hardship. The next generation seemed to be “militantly proud of being Eurasian” and the youngsters barely saw why it was interesting – “yet another shift in perceptions – now it is such a non-issue.”
This chaotic whirlwind of identities is hard to capture in words, let alone in pictures. But Zimmern always had a strong idea of how she wanted the book to look. Describing herself as an “enthusiastic amateur,” she is completely self-taught, and used no professional lighting or make up in any of her photos. “I wanted the book to look as if you just stopped to talk to these Eurasians in the street – as if you met them in a bar, and you just got a snapshot of them”. The book is image focused, as the name suggests, but this photojournalistic approach does make the message clear. The gritty clarity of the photos captures an essence of the person, as if the words merely garnish what is already told by their expression.

There are conclusions to be drawn when studying the Eurasian face. It is undoubtedly one of the most sellable looks, used widely in the media on both sides of the planet. Zimmern describes it as “at once exotic and different, and yet familiar, to both eastern and western, and so in terms of global image it is valuable for advertisers, because if everyone can identify and admire, then you can sell anything.” However, she does see issues arising from being Eurasian in Hong Kong, especially with a strongly Caucasian look. “Nobody wants to accept that you’re from here,” says Zimmern “and those issues of identity are much more jarring.”

Although she raises some interesting socio-political points, Zimmern is quick to point out that she never wrote with an academic approach, “It was a fun project; it was literally supposed to just be stepping into someone’s life for a moment – a brief glance.” Whatever the intentions of Zimmern’s writing, she has given Hong Kong the gift of taking 70 completely different Eurasian people, who have all been culturally split in two, and uniting them in recognition of their own unique look.

Hannah Slapper & Patrick Brzeski

The Eurasian Face (Blacksmith Books) is out now.