Posts tagged with "Chinese culture"

Relationship Advice From Chinese People

My fam­i­ly always ask me if I’m dat­ing any­one right now. They assume I pre­fer Caucasian girls. I tell them I don’t mind either way (the oth­er side of “either” being Chinese girls). That’s when they warn me about main­land girls. Chinese main­lan­ders are com­mon­ly viewed by Hong Kong peo­ple as being low-class, crude, and provin­cial. It’s said that even if a girl from there is pret­ty, they lose all attrac­tive­ness as soon as she opens her mouth. On top of that, they’re gold-dig­gers, just look­ing for a way to get mon­ey or a green card.

They tell me I’ll be fine as long as I don’t mar­ry a main­land girl.

My grand­ma used to tell me to find a Chinese girl, because Chinese girls treat their men bet­ter, or to find some­one who loves me more than I love them. She’s filled with all sorts of fun­ny apho­risms, like “Women are to be loved, not hit.”

Kar-Ma

If you beat a dog, don’t be sur­prised if he runs away.

—let­ter to my uncle, March 2008

When I was a child my mom would always ask me if I’d let her live in a nurs­ing home. She would do this as a form of reas­sur­ance, a way of address­ing her inse­cu­ri­ty about dying alone. To Chinese peo­ple, this is a fate worse than death. I under­stand that there may be med­ical con­di­tions or oth­er cir­cum­stances that make it imprac­ti­cal for a fam­i­ly mem­ber to live in your house, but that does­n’t change the fact that being put in a nurs­ing home is like wait­ing to die.

At the time, I was too young to under­stand the grav­i­ty of such a ques­tion, so I would always reas­sure her, no. Maybe I even loved her at that point, and meant it. But I’ve since cut off all ties with her, and after the divorce, she has no one left. Her rel­a­tives lead their own lives, and she’s nev­er had enough of a per­son­al­i­ty to make any friends. I’ve lived with her long enough to under­stand what a hol­low, emp­ty exis­tence she has.

Now I’m old enough to know that she’ll die alone.

And that it’ll be exact­ly what she deserves.

A Note On Chinese Titles

Both my Tai Chi teach­ers eschew the title of “Master”, and pre­fer to be called by their first names. As I’ve had it explained to me, even the true mas­ters feel like they need a cou­ple extra life­times to com­plete­ly mas­ter Tai Chi. This is what my teach­ers com­pare them­selves to, so I sus­pect they feel it erro­neous to use the same title, even though they’ve been teach­ing for decades.

I find it very awk­ward. In Chinese, the word “Master” or “Sifu” implies a teacher, not nec­es­sar­i­ly a lev­el of skill.

When I was young, I called my cousin by his Chinese name, because I thought it was insult­ing to address him by his rela­tion­al title of biu dai for “mater­nal younger male cousin” (or “moth­er’s sib­lings’ son who is younger than me”). I thought the “dai” part referred to some­one as “under”, the way “junior” could be used pejo­ra­tive­ly in English. The thing I did­n’t under­stand was that it was appro­pri­ate, per­haps even more appro­pri­ate than address­ing him by name. I’ve since become privy to the com­plex rules of Chinese names and titles, espe­cial­ly rela­tion­al fam­i­ly ones.

As a kid, the first thing you’re sup­posed to do when enter­ing a house is greet every­one — adults most impor­tant­ly — by their title.

People con­tin­ue this tra­di­tion though, and even as par­ents, they’ll address their elders the same way. It’s a way of rec­og­niz­ing and respect­ing the roles in the fam­i­ly. Even though my Tai Chi teacher is Occidental, I feel com­pelled to address my teacher as “Master”, instead of “Mike”.

And it’s hard habit for me to break.

Creatures Of Our Cultures

“One or sep­a­rate bills?”, the wait­ress asks us. She has a slight Japanese accent, but aside from her raven hair, her fea­tures are dis­tinct­ly Occidental.

“One please”.

“We’re treat­ing, Jeff”.

“Nope. You guys are in my town.”

“What does that have to do with any­thing?”, they ask, and threat­en to leave if I pay. It does noth­ing to con­vince me or change my con­vic­tion.

“You guys are a lot more behaved than when I was your age”, says the man sit­ting next to us.

Thumbnail: Teppanyaki Flare 

When the bill comes around, we wrench the tray from each oth­ers hands.

“Must be odd”, the man whis­pers to his wife, who’s laugh­ing at us.

But it’s not odd to me. It’s the Chinese way. Like hav­ing too much food when you’re host­ing a par­ty because to run out is the ulti­mate embar­rass­ment.

To me, it’s odd when some­one does­n’t offer to pay.

The same way it’s odd to hear North American peo­ple com­plain about their jobs. To the Chinese, a job is how you take care of your fam­i­ly. It does­n’t mat­ter that it’s mind­less, stress­ful, or hard phys­i­cal labour. You’re just hap­py to have that oppor­tu­ni­ty. All my Canadian Chinese friends feel the same1.

This is how we were raised. It was­n’t a rule that was spo­ken. We learned it by watch­ing our par­ents, who would clip coupons for gro­ceries, only buy clothes on sale, re-use paper by writ­ing over again with dif­fer­ent coloured inks, but go out to feast with ten peo­ple then fight to pay the bill. Sometimes, they’d even get up to find the serv­er to make a pre­emp­tive, sur­rep­ti­tious pay­ment. Occasionally there were spilled drinks and soiled clothes, as the fight became phys­i­cal2. I think it’s nice part of the cul­ture to be so adamant about friend­ship and com­pa­ny.

And I’m glad to be a part of it.

  1. Aaron is prob­a­bly one of the few peo­ple I know who under­stands. He’ll fight with me, not just over a bill when eat­ing out, but for movies, gro­ceries, and oth­er sun­dries. [↩]
  2. I remem­ber a child cry­ing once, a rel­a­tive of a rel­a­tive, think­ing the par­ents were argu­ing with anger. [↩]

Rebel Son

Rana pulled me aside the oth­er day and told me, I under­stand your cul­ture now. I under­stand your deci­sion.

She elab­o­rat­ed on a woman at work who had sent her daugh­ter to live in China. It was soon after the baby was born, and the grand­moth­er assumed respon­si­bil­i­ty of par­ent. The moth­er nev­er went to vis­it, only send­ing mon­ey for her upbring­ing.

That day, the grand­moth­er and grand­daugh­ter came to work, hav­ing flown into Canada to vis­it. No one at work had seen the child, two years old now. The whole time, she was ner­vous and shy, clutch­ing the leg of her grand­moth­er. When the moth­er tried to hold her, she would­n’t budge, only cry­ing the rau­cous, uncon­trolled, unin­hib­it­ed tears of a child.

Rana told me this with sur­prise and con­fu­sion in her face. It was hard for her to believe that any­one could do this to their baby. I wish I could say that I was sur­prised.

This child was too young to know bias or bit­ter­ness. She only knew what she felt, a being of pure emo­tion. The woman who was sup­posed to be her moth­er was no clos­er than a stranger, and for the first time, Rana was exposed to this.

I’ve always con­fid­ed in Rana about my own rela­tion­ship with my par­ents. She’s one of the few who real­ly care, ask­ing me if there’s been any news on a reg­u­lar basis, espe­cial­ly since I cut all ties. We nev­er argue, but she’s nev­er ful­ly agreed with me. She always tried to give me a mater­nal per­spec­tive, being a moth­er of three her­self. I’ve admit­ted that I don’t under­stand what it means to be a par­ent, but that day, she real­ized that she nev­er under­stood what it means to be a child of the Chinese cul­ture.

It’s cold. It’s mate­r­i­al. Most Chinese par­ents can only express their love with mon­ey.

In this way, my par­ents showed me that they loved me. They prob­a­bly think they did the best they could, but as a child of the North American cul­ture, I felt noth­ing. I nev­er knew what it was to be loved.

And Rana said, You were the one who rebelled against this.