My Chinese Family and Customs

Many health care professionals think that if patients are just treated with respect, then cultural issues will be avoided. That statement is not the correct.

My Vietnamese is very limited, I do not know how to write or speak it. Whenever I talk to someone in my native tongue, they either receive my knowledge well or poorly. When it comes to speaking with my elders, they ridicule me for not knowing the language from where my ancestors were. It was not my fault in all honesty. I had the materials to learn the language right in front of me, but I never really took the time to go do it. Life just got in the way. Both of my parents were struggling to make ends meat. My father even had to go out of state once, just to find a job while my mother was still in

For my parent’s, language was and still is a constant struggle doing things that seem easy to most people can be difficult for them. Things like ordering food at a fast food restaurant and asking for help at the grocery store seem may easy for most people but can sometimes be challenging for my parents. My brother and I try to help as much as we can by translating. I found it extremely helpful since it helped me stay connected to both languages. Now it is not as hard for my parents since they have picked up a lot of the language and there are different recourses.

My international background has shaped who I am today because of the influence of my Chinese immigrant parents. My parents never had an easy life. My parents, who lived in poverty in China, immigrated to the United States hoping for a better life and to pursue the American Dream. They immigrated to the Unites States with no money and no knowledge of the English language. The language barrier alone created a mass obstacle for their early life in America. My dad had once told me that at the age of 13 he was already cooking for his entire family while working to provide financial support for his parents and siblings.

Stories and stereotypes make many people want to change themselves negatively and assimilate just to fit in with society. As time passes, society’s stereotypes for how people of each race should be, which race is more dominant than others, and which race you should be, all play a role in impacting someone’s self-esteem and their insecurities. This is portrayed through Jin Wang, a main character in Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese” when Jin Wang thinks his crush, Amelia, he instantly becomes happy. But then he thinks about Greg and Amelia together and gets mad. He finally zooms into Greg’s blond hair. The next day he goes to school with the same hairstyle. The hair symbolizes Greg’s all American identity because the stereotypical American is portrayed with blond hair and blue eyes. To Jin Wang, this hair symbolizes what he wants to be, so he changed his hair to an “American” hairstyle to get Amelia to like him. Due to stereotypes about how Americans are suppose to look like, Jin Wang feels insecure about himself and wants to change his identity and himself as well to assimilate into American culture and stereotypes. These stereotypes and the Anti-Asian stereotypes impact Jin Wang greatly and make him hate himself as well as his background and where he came from because he believes that in order to be AMerica, you have to be white. Another way that this is portrayed is from a personal experience I had as a kid. Growing up as an Asian kid in America, I didn’t really know

Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the early 20th century, many Chinese families struggled to gain social, economic, and educational stature in both China and the United States. In the book, A Transnational History of a Chinese Family, by Haiming Liu, we learn about the Chang family rooted in Kaiping County, China, who unlike many typical Chinese families’ exemplified hard-work and strong cultural values allowing them to pursue an exceptional Chinese-American lifestyle. Even with immigration laws preventing Chinese laborers and citizens to enter unless maintaining merchant status, Yitang and Sam Chang managed to sponsor approximately 40 relatives to the states with their businesses in herbalist

Every time I come home from college, my family and I would go out to yumcha or, as directly translated from Cantonese, to “drink tea. However, drinking tea is only one component of yumcha. To yumcha is to converse with company over a meal of many small dishes and hot tea. Going yumcha is social activity brought to the United States by the people from the Guangdong region of China, also known as Cantonese people. When they immigrated to the United States, yumcha became an important tradition because it also enabled Cantonese parents to socialize their children into the Chinese culture through the language and social practices involved in the meal and the ritual and meaning surrounding the tea. However, to Chinese-Americans such as myself, going yumcha with native Chinese people also emphasized my American identity due to my food choices. Yet when I go yumcha with non-Chinese people, I become distinctly aware of my Chinese identity when they fail the language or rituals of this tradition. The only time when I do not feel alienated during yumcha is when I go with my other

I love my friends and family, and I love talking to them, but sometimes I can’t. As you might not be able to tell, I am mixed, even if it doesn’t say so on my birth certificate (thanks, Dad.) My father is white, but my mom isn’t. Her side is Puerto Rican, Italian, and Spanish. She has three sisters in which married wither a White, Dominican, or African American man. Altogether, her side of the family can speak English, however most switch to spanish when they talk to one another because it is more comfortable to talk in a native tongue. Plus, my great grandmother doesn’t even speak English, so I just end up nodding along. Also, family friends and even most of the people I am around in Massachusetts speak spanish. It’s great to learn another language because you want to, but wanting to learn because you want to be able to communicate to family is a different story. I never know how much time I have left to talk to them. This has made me love learning about any language. I memorized words and phrases from Spanish, Japanese, Swiss-German, Italian, and more by getting interested in the language and looking information up online. Again, I am not fluent in any other

To the outside world, I appear to belong to the Traditional White Nuclear Family culture, but my family included co-cultures and subcultures that were rare in the suburban south.

An oppression is when people are governed under unfair and cruel way and have no freedom or opportunities. There are different types of oppression, such as racial and religious conflicts, conflicts between dictatorial governments and their citizens. Also, the battle between sexes, conflicts between management and labor, and conflicts between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

Throughout my childhood, it was a normal occurrence to hear three different languages in a single conversation. My father’s native language is Korean and my mother’s native language is Chinese. From my upbringing, I got to witness one of the struggles of an immigrant, which is learning English. Although my parents’ English is very good now, it took many years of practice. I often had to serve as a translator for my parents in public settings early on in my life. Not knowing English should not have to be a source of shame for an immigrant. However, I saw the embarrassment on my parents’ faces when I had to translate publicly for them. They worked endlessly every night in their college classes to become proficient in English, a skill that is easy for native speakers to take for granted. It made me realize the obstacles that immigrants face. To this day, my parents are still self-conscious about their speaking abilities. It has even influenced my mother’s career prospects. She has decided not to progress in her career, which requires teaching because she is afraid people will not like being taught by her because of her accent. Language is required to gain friendships, good jobs, and ultimately the power to

I was born in Hong Kong and I grew up in the Philippines. I went to a Chinese school and had to learn four different languages (Mandarin, Fukien, English, and Tagalog) all at the same time. I learned Chinese because my dad planned for us to live in Hong Kong in the future; however, there was a change since my grandma petitioned my dad to come to the United States. Schools in the Philippines teach English since it’s the most common language in the world, but the English curriculum in both countries are different. The language barrier was always, and I had to adjust to the language when I moved here to the US. Because of my previous experience with learning a second language, it was not difficult for me to adjust. However, growing up in an environment that mostly speak Chinese or Tagalog, it felt strange for me to speak in English 90% of the time. My cousins who were born here helped me adjust to the language. They helped me practice my English and taught me the proper way to write essays in English. However, since I was new in the neighborhood and in the country, I was afraid to speak because of my heavy accent. I was scared that other students might make fun of me. Despite my shyness, I was able to make some friends who made me

Individuals may not want to admit that every individual may be ethnocentric in some way. I’m ethnocentric since, my ancestor and grandparents of my parents of my mother and deceased father has established a concrete foundations from an African American and Indian perspective for my life and culture that I’m very grateful to represent. During the duration of my family cultural convolution which consisted of integrating both cultures beliefs and morals to unify one strong foundation as a norm for my generation demonstrate the same morals, beliefs, and values from two cultures. The thing I appreciate is that I have the ability to sustain such a strong strength of belief that my moral stood for greatness for me to become more empowered to become

Chinese culture is truly one of the great civilization our world has come across. It boasts a vast geographic expanse, over 4000 years of written history, as well as a rich and profound traditional society. Many aspects of Chinese civilization can be traced back many centuries. It is so diverse and unique, yet harmoniously blended, and presents itself a priceless benefit to the world.

How ironic that even when someone like Caitlin's father who's history of being selfish and cheap I his previous marriages could attract so many young talented ambitious women into matrimony. As the Chinese mom's daughters reflect on their stained memories of how their father treated their own mother, they relive how much anger and hostility they harbor for his role, or lack of, in being the head of their family. They not only tried to forget the details of their upbringing but they feared for the future if the possible wife he sought after. When the mail arrived from China in response to his quest for a new wife, it's almost like these women were desperate to leave their mainland and come to America