Celestials
Celestials
In Brief
Chinese immigrants in late 19th century Australia, Canada,
and America were often called "Celestials" because of an old
name for China, the Celestial Empire. Bloom applies the name
to people in China as he stands outside St. Andrew's church
contemplating the announcement of a Catholic mission to that
country.
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In the popular media of the day, Chinese workers were
sometimes called Celestials with pejorative intent. But what a
strange slur! Just as the racist-sounding phrase "the heathen
Chinee" derives from a poem
by Bret Harte that decries racism by showing the
eponymous protagonist to be as clever as white Americans, this
scornful name echoes Chinese people's highly complimentary
self-appellation. China was called Tianchao, the Empire of
Heaven, for many centuries, and emperors were styled the Son
of Heaven. Why would westerners have applied the term to
overworked and despised immigrant laborers in a spirit of
mockery? Perhaps it was because the Chinese empire had been
humiliated and weakened in the opium
wars of the mid-19th century.
Just as with "the heathen Chinee," it is impossible to know
from Bloom's brief allusion where he locates himself on the
emotional spectrum between sympathetic admiration for
"Celestials" and mocking contempt. But Joyce does show his
inclination to stand outside the ethnocentrism of his own
culture and wonder about a different culture's perspective.
Bloom supposes that, to the Chinese with their own exalted
ideas of Heavenly order, the arrival of Catholicism would not
seem like a god-sent revelation: "Rank heresy for them."
