My Misunderstand My Cultural Traditions In China

Culture shapes our identity and influences our behaviors. Living in California has been an open-minded journey for me because of diverse cultures, lifestyles, and people’s thought. Although, I learned to adopt the positive of a new culture and abandon the negative ones. It seemed like I could easily lose my cultural identity while I am accepting a new culture. However, After I took the class I even feel a greater appreciation on my own race, ethnicity and culture. I think my identity will never change. I will always consider myself as a Chinese because my own culture has shaped me into who I am no matter where I live and whom I married to.

Growing up as an Asian American, I often struggle to identify my own cultural identity. Being the first generation of both my mother and father’s side of the family, I more than often get confused between American and Asian culture when applying them to society or at home. While being raised at home, I am largely influenced by culture and traditions from Asian parents and relatives. However, when I go to school or someplace else, I am heavily judged for practicing part of my Asian culture because it is entirely different than western or American. With that being noted, I began to learn and adapt to the western culture in hopes of fitting with society as well of trying to keep my Asian culture intact. As can be seen, this situation I dealt with is the same problem the whole Asian American community faces. Mainly focusing on younger generations like me for example, the Asian American community struggles to adapt to the western culture because they were raised with an Asian influence. Wishing to fit in society and be part of the social norms, the Asian Americans community faces issues that identify their cultural identity.

Up until last year I always tried to hide my chinese culture. Now I actually think that my ethnicity is really interesting and I would not trade it for anything in the world. In Salem, there are not many Chinese people and especially not many half chinese people such as myself. I only know two other people like myself and I love being with them. Even today, I always feel kind of like the odd one out. When I am with white people, like my friends or family, I feel super chinese and with Chinese people I feel extremely white. On my either sides of my family I never felt like I belonged because they have a really strong white or Asian culture to them. Being a multiracial human is so special to me and because I travel regularly, getting to see other multiracial people is so heartwarming and thrilling at the same time. (Making a

People of many different ethnicities have questioned my heritage, and when I defend my culture, they have laughed at me. In my Spanish class, it was tradition to celebrate Cinco De Mayo where many students would bring Mexican food or something similar. My father, an avid cook, would prepare a Mexican dish every year. For my seventh grade year, my father and I made tamales for the class. The majority of the class enjoyed them.Yet , a select few, “more” Mexican ones, did not even try them.I proceeded to ask why they did not eat them; no clear answer was given. I naively and simply thought they did not like tamales or were just not hungry so to their reply; I remarked, “Yeah I understand I like manoodle more anyway”. My comment was quickly answered with astringent laughter. Baffled by their response, I walked away not knowing they were laughing at me. What caused the laughter was the pronunciation of the word menudo,a Mexican dish, however I did not understand this because manoodle is my how my father pronounced it. The mispronunciation was due to the fact that,sadly, Spanish was not passed to my father’s generation. Honestly, this situation has truly affected how I view myself. It made me think that I was not good enough, that I did not deserve my name and that I was not who I thought I was. At one point, it

I was born in Taiwan, when I was eleven years old, my family have immigrated to a small town in Eastern Kentucky. Moving from a mostly homogeneous society to a heterogeneous society was quite a change for our family, it has also open my eyes to culture conflicts. Growing up, I’ve define my race as Asian, and my ethnicity as Taiwanese-American, at home my parents speak mainly Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese, and we ate mostly Taiwanese food at home, however I have been socialized and adapted into the American culture in school, and with my peers. Consequently, as I grow older, I’ve identify myself with both culture and heritages. I have made an effort to not forget my native languages and my native culture values, instead, I’ve try my best to make the best out of both cultures.

I was born in China and was adopted by Caucasian parents when I was about one year old. A few years after they got me, they went back to China and adopted another baby girl. Thus my family consists of a white mother, white father, and two Chinese daughters, none of us biologically related. Besides that first year of life I’ve lived in a small, rural Pennsylvania town. Growing up in the 1990s in this town was tough as it was severely lacking in diversity (i.e. vast majority Caucasian). I got picked on all the way through elementary school and into middle and high school, simply for looking different, for being Asian, for being non-white. My parents also had to deal with racist, ignorant questions and statements from, not children in an elementary school, but other full grown adults. Despite all of the negativity, my mom tried to incorporate Chinese culture into our lives, for example taking us to Chinese language lessons and celebrating Chinese New Year at home, but I wholeheartedly denied all of it because I did not want to be Chinese, I wanted to be white and fit in with all the other kids and people in that town. I felt isolated and outcast in such a homogenous setting, especially since there wasn’t (and still isn’t) much representation in the media for Asians for me to look up to and relate to. I’ve come to love, accept, and embrace my race nowadays, but

I am half-Chinese, half-Swedish, and both a Swedish and an American citizen.  Throughout my life, my parents have always stressed the importance of celebrating all three of my nationalities; however, growing up, my peers were not able to accept me for being anything but “some sort of Asian.”  In spite of my Swedish heritage and our shared upbringing in the homogeneously white town of Rye, I was always treated differently because of my appearance.  Constantly having

I was born in China and came here when I was a baby, and naturally I have the appearance of an average male from china, that has black hair, brown eyes, and yellowish skin. Because of these features and because I was born in China, my nationality is that I’m Chinese, but that is where the assumption start, they all assume that I can speak Chinese fluently, and practice Buddhism. However, when they find out that I can’t speak Chinese, and don’t practice Buddhism; the responds I often get is, “ but aren’t you Chinese?” Some people may say that I been Americanized, and because of this I don’t hold on to any Chinese traditions or believes and only Chinese on the outside.

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.

Chinese culture and American culture are very different. Each culture have different rules for women. They also treat the women different.

In the early 17th century, Qing China, and Tokugawa Japan were both in power, and changing rapidly (pg. 480). The Tokugawa had risen to power (pg. 480), and the Chinese Empire was expanding at a quick pace, and to a degree that hadn’t been seen since the Han and the Tang dynasties (pg. 479). A big factor in the fast changes was the contact with the west, and the Europeans (pg. 480). At first, both of the dynasties were open and welcoming to the Europeans, but later the leaders of these empires became concerned with harmful effects of western contact (pg. 480). The leaders wanted to protect themselves against intrusion, and the consequences that western practices have on traditional practices (pg. 480).

The culture of China has deeply engrained commitment to learning its citizenry by placing high meaning on book learning and formal education than other civilizations. Education in china was placed as a path to government career since they were determined to bureaucratic appointment, a path to prestige and authority by eligible men of humble birth to rise to the top. This is unlike the US because leaders wished to develop well rounded citizens but there were others who advocated for more practical goals of learning modern science and technology to reform the country in countering western imperialism (Mohrman, Geng, & Wang, 2011). Attaining the status of a Professor one must sustain a distinguished track record of scholarly achievement within one university and academic discipline to be promoted from an associate professor. The position of professor is usually tenured but not for private and church affiliated institutions (BISO, 2010). The status of a professor is the highest of the standard academic ranks with advancement past the rank of professor involves administrative duties. There is no mandatory retirement age in this occupation and full professor in the US is around 55 years with only few people attains the position before attaining that age. Full professor earn on average 70% more than the associate professor in the same institution but those in private institutions earn less (Kim, 2012). Promotion of professors comes with increased administrative responsibilities

The people in China are rich in culture just like other Asian countries. Therefore, to be involve with Chinese people in China for business, undertsanding their values and culture are very important. The first important thing to understand about Chinese is their devotion to collectivism. Chinese is trained from very early to consider himself as a dependent segment of a group, which is also called totalitarianism. It is helpful to think of the notion of family in China as a template applied to many networks of relationships that hold the society together. In the Chinese business context, the notion of family is about more than the emotional support and ties of a nuclear family. Family members, for

When I encounter people of my ethnicity that originate from China or other places, I begin making assumptions based on their origin. For example, people of my ethnicity from China are often viewed as rigid, old-fashioned, and lack manners. These stereotypes lead to grouping and discrimination within my ethnicity. I felt I had occasionally reflected such notions on people within my ethnicity, who originated from different locations. This in a sense created conflict with identifying to my ethnicity. When I was young, I would often only hold pride to things positive to my ethnicity and exclude things that conflicted with that concept. I feel this encouraged feelings of discrimination and hindered the development to identify with my

Chinese and western cultural differences reflected in many aspects: first, integrity and individuality difference. Oriental countries emphasize holistic and integrated, while westerners pay attention to individuality. Such as traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine, Chinese medicine emphasizes the whole, western medicine is different, from the point of view of anatomy, it attaches great importance to the whole of the local. Difference between the overall thinking and individual thinking but also in the daily conversation, such as in many reports, a Chinese to westerners eat at home, when the host asked today When eating Chinese food or western food, the guest very politely said: "whatever[AB1] ." In the west to understand such a reply, they said as soon as the word have a headache, don't know how to repair. Our deep thinking mode, considered with the main of manners, is respect for the host, but westerners don't think so, this is the difference. Conversely, Europeans who come to China, you ask him what they’re going to do today, he must not say "casual," will make clear his wish.