The way Chinese in Hawaii practice microfinance coincides with that of the West African banking practice of its diaspora and other western Indian communities. The two racialized communities shut out of the colonial banking financial system became a source of communal power and wealth, depending on indigenous modes of microfinance and autonomy. In addition to the country’s network of stores, Jamaican Chinese merchants were also operating mobile sound systems that would be sent to rural areas with the required equipment. The people in charge carried engines, microphones, batteries, projector machines and video projection equipment.
The Jamaican sound systems were created under such hisotrical conditions and circumstances and are mostly controlled by a sound and frequency mechanic with the possibility of being rearranged beyond coloniality sociality and spatial fashion in traditional and colonial imagining. The sequence of sounds that humans audibly interpret as tuning in to the entirety of space and time, which is always overlooked, is made possible by the transformation of space into sound. The asymmetry of the experience and interpretation is often highlighted by the adaption of sound. Adjustment of Jamaican 1950s acoustic intimates helps us realize the social spaces that coincided with them. The iconic slogan of Jamaica “The only good system is a sound system” (Goffe, 2020) points to the extracolonial ability outside of colonial history.
Sonic and ceremonial universes provide preconceivable spaces for expressing themselves and pursuit freedom under the capitalistic exploitation and workloads that they cannot get control over. Hawaiian community music promotes slackness as opposed to constructive modes of denying colonial property conventions. The planting culture of Jamaica remained heavily racialized whereas business policy varied because of the common knowledge for Chinese businessmen owning variety shops to increase credit. The credit connection was determined by deep group links sustained and associated. Worlding, as phrased by Goffe, was in the China shop’s sociality intimate with the plantocratic physics of the interaction and tension between racialist classes. The Chinese shop facilities and sociality offered an area of recreation and lyrical music exchanges for Jamaica’s typical worker rather than just money and food business.
In Honolulu’s Chinatown we will find parallels, applying our reflections on sound and social phenomenons associated with it in Jamaica. The Chinese people in Hawaii have been subject to heavy segregation and discrimination, but through the development and operation and sound and capital they developed a sense of community in the wake of natural disasters and persecution by the colonial forces comparable with the marginalized communities in Jamaica. The Chinese people who live in Honolulu’s Chinatown have been marginalised by the state officials to survive in the harsh conditions. Applying our new findings and observations to those living in Honolulu’s Chinatown, we can shift our focus to the actual Chinese people and Hawaii residents through their local and nonconventional way.