Adam Heron - Interview

Adam Heron is an award-winning Classical Pianist and PhD Researcher at the University of Glasgow. He is ethnically Nigerian and Filipino, has Irish and British citizenship and has lived in Hong Kong, Ireland, England and France, he currently lives in Scotland.

Adam's portrait

On the topic of home, Adam made the following reflections about what it means to him:

●      “I feel that home is an abstract concept. Many people consider it to be a particular city or country, but for me it has always been about people and human connections, without reference to geography. Personally, I feel at home through being with my mother, my partner, and my friends.”

●      “I feel very comfortable in my native Hong Kong, but I would struggle to call it home after having been estranged from the city for well over two decades. I emigrated when I was three years old; this was young enough to cause complete attrition of my mother tongue - Cantonese - but also old enough to ensure the retention of powerful, visceral, and somewhat bittersweet memories.”

When I asked Adam to describe his identity, he reflected on what identity means to him, how his heritage has informed his identity and how it has developed throughout his up-bringing and emphasized the limitations of using labels and box-ticking exercises to define identity:

●      “My identity is my individuality, my character, my upbringing, my history, and my story.”

●      “Many people like to treat personal identity as a box-ticking exercise; for me, this usually involves labels including Black, Irish, British, Nigeria, and Filipino. It feels almost impossible to choose one over another, as I am an evenly-distributed amalgamation of all these things!”

●      “As a product of multiple differing identities, I have formed my own personal culture. I wrote my MPhil thesis at the University of Cambridge on the Third Culture Kids, and in doing so I realised that, in many ways, I am almost exactly one of them.”

●      “I never wish to be sandwiched into a space that feels too small to accommodate my identities. I may be a classical musician, for example, but I am still curious enough to enjoy other types of music and to learn from them as well.”

●      “I grew up surrounded by Christian culture. I do not practice today, certainly not because I am averse to it, but rather as a result of living within a relatively secular society today. My musical upbringing was mostly a religious one; I would not have achieved what I had done without the four formative years that I spent as a choirboy at Gloucester Cathedral.”

Adam reflected on how his behaviour and personality can shift in response to environment and situational factors, such as the social and cultural context, highlighting the psychological and emotional impacts of exposure to different places:

●      “I often claim to be an introvert, but that admittedly confines me to a pigeon-hole full of preconceived notions. Unfortunately, having so many cultures and identities requires me to adopt chameleonic behaviour in many ways! When I visit Ireland, for example, my accent becomes noticeably more Irish and any Englishness in my character retreats accordingly.”

●      “When asked to describe my own personality, I usually use adjectives like reflective and pensive, sometimes referring to wistfulness and nostalgia too. However, my personality changes depending on social and cultural context. So, when talking with you - someone with whom I feel a lot of personal comparability - I may appear outgoing, gregarious and even bubbly; on the other hand, if I found myself amongst strongly extroverted characters within a group setting, I could seem noticeably shy and timid.”

Adam described several instances of prejudice and discrimination which he has experienced throughout his life, he reflected on how his understanding of racism has changed, no longer believing that integration will lead to acceptance. He also hihglighted how the nature of the incidents he has experienced had changed from overt and easily identifiable racism to more insidious forms of hate, leading others to question and doubt his perception, which has had a significant psychological impact on him as a victim, resulting in self-silencing:

·       “Others may perceive and interpret my personal experiences of cruelty, prejudice, and discrimination in vastly different ways. I believe that discrimination - whether by race, gender, sexuality, or otherwise can be very insidious. Therefore, it can be very difficult to identify and diagnose.”

●      “In the Classical Music industry, practitioners who look like me are few and far between, but those who do are not necessarily allies.”

●      “Pertaining to so many societies makes it extraordinarily difficult to truly belong to any one of them, and as a result of not fitting in, I always feel that I exist on the peripheries of these communities.”

●      “When I was a schoolboy, one nasty classmate once cried to me, “just go back to where you came from”, along with the predictable racial slurs that need not be repeated here. What upset me, however, were not these flippant comments, but rather the knee-jerk response from the class teacher:                                                

“Adam, what did you do to provoke them?” I quickly learned, sadly, that I would often be at fault in my life for simply existing.”

●      “Certain teachers used to join the bullying too. Picking up on the litany of jokes that I endured for my skin color, demanded,                                     

“Adam, turn over your hand…Oh my God, it's white!” and then he proceeded to laugh hysterically with the rest of the other children. When it feels that you are perceived as a walking comedy, you tend not to complain as you imagine that nobody will take you seriously, so I stayed silent and took it all on the chin.”

●      ”Any discrimination that I experience nowadays feels different from what I saw in my past. It appears increasingly concealed and insidious, often inviting gaslighting from individuals - even close ones - who prefer to offer doubt in place of empathy. As a result, I often feel ashamed to talk about it, from fear of rebuttal and ridicule. Personally, I believe we would all benefit from attempting, as earnestly as possible, to understand the opinions and lived experiences of others, instead of instinctively disputing them.”

●      “I have visited many places in which I receive stares, but to me that is not indicative of discrimination, more of curiosity. However, I feel that such curiosity would be liable to develop into discrimination if I were to become a permanent resident in that place, and if the existing societal hierarchies were to change in my favour. As an immigrant, I used to believe that my lack of belonging and acceptance was due to being insufficiently integrated. However, I have since learned that success, in education, career, or otherwise, will not necessarily earn the same admiration as it would if I were a native. Sadly, it often feels easier for me to nurture an easier life through silence and humility rather than outspoken happiness and pride.”

When we discussed the topic of belonging, Adam explained how he rarely feels that he fits entirely into specific communities or places and that he has had to adopt a mentality of “expectation management” and has found a sense of freedom in relinquishing himself from the pressure of trying to be part of a homogenous collective:

●      “I rarely feel a sense of belonging to my ancestral or adoptive nationalities. If I speak to an Irish person, they often insist that my accent is very English. If I speak to an English person, they usually ask why I have an Irish accent. In Hong Kong, I feel starkly out of place after having lost my native Cantonese, and I have never visited either the Philippines or Nigeria.”

●      “Instead of depending on other communities to accept me, I have constructed my own identity and sense of personal belonging. Some may view that as a somewhat perverse act of defiance, but I view it as an act of self-love. After much disappointment, I stopped expecting to feel at home in any national identity, because it seems unlikely to work when you are a multiracial individual, who is a product of two different ethnicities and five different nations.”

●      “If I never expect to be accepted by a community as 100% one of them, then I will not be disappointed. The moment that I naively expect to be accepted in the same manner as someone for whom most of their ethnic ancestry can be traced to that same community, then I will be very upset when inevitably viewed as foreign. Hence why I take comfort in constructing my own notion of home, my own identity, my own personality - and hopefully, one day - my own family. Through this I can overcome the conundrum of fitting in.”

●      “People always talk to me about roots, but I am no tree. I was born with legs that enable me to move - with that mobility I can attempt to improve my situation for the better. Kidding myself that I can belong to homogenous national identity has never worked well for me. It feels very freeing to relinquish that pressure.”

●      “If there is one thing that I dislike, it is binary thinking. The perceived racial dichotomy between Black and White has been particularly pertinent to my life. Given my cosmopolitan mannerisms, my occupation and hobbies, as well as my educational background, certain people have commented on how I “act White” by virtue of these things.”

●      “It can be beneficial, sometimes, to exist on the periphery of a social group. It is never comfortable, because it is human nature to desire belonging. Nevertheless, I believe that we can learn a lot by observing others from afar, as we can therefore extract ourselves from the internal struggles and affairs that often blindfold certain communities. It is a valuable exercise in learning to differentiate between what is rational and what is unwisely emotional.”

Adam didn’t entirely surprise me in his reluctance to describe music as a passion – due to the commitment he has made as a professional musician, instead he described his love of learning languages and discovering new cultures:

●      “Funnily enough, passion is the topic that I fear the most. I hesitate to describe music as a passion, given that it is primarily a commitment. I have a somewhat complicated relationship with music, as my performing career can be extraordinarily stressful and isolating.”

●      “There are many other things that I am hastier to call passions, like diving into new cultures - not just temporary traveling, but discovering a country from the inside, learning the local language and spending as much time there as possible”

●      “Language learning is a creative process in many ways, and it is a wonderful way to meet people.”

Adam chose red, blue, green and grey to represent his identity, along with symbols which reflected his Chinese heritage, experiences of travelling from a young age and Irish upbringing:

●      “To me, the sea symbolises migration, movement, and freedom. It also represents life. I grew up next to the water, in a flat overlooking the Tolo Harbor of Hong Kong.”

●      “The next symbol would be the aeroplane, because it represents liberty and discovery. During the brief hours that we spend above the clouds, travelling by plane has the power to give us a sense of surreal escapism”

●      “One of my earliest childhood memories is the sensation of hurtling along a concrete runway in a large aircraft, the airframe rattling and shaking.”

●      “The Irish shamrock is actually the symbol of the national airline of Ireland, Aer Lingus. It is also a tripartite entity, with three leaves.”

●      “The colour red acknowledges the Chinese element of my story and upbringing. Red lanterns were amongst my favourite toys when I was an infant, along with paper dragons.”

Adam's flag

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