What's Your Slant

[nonamerasian]

How did the culture(s) you grew up a part of influenced who you are today?

Is the culture(s) from your past important to you today?

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Most people here grew up a part of American culture. Aside from 1.5ers ...

Personally I wasn't really a part of Chinese culture until around high school. Before that time most Chinese people would have rightly pegged me as an obvious foreigner.

[nonamerasian]

I have friends whose families have been in the States for years, yet you'd think they just stepped off the plane, while others were actually born out of the country and are as American as apple pie.

Generation doesn't always matter.

[ChinaLama]

When I was a kid, for some reason, i started romanticizing the PLA, proly cuz in every book I read, they talked about how the commies won people over during the war, and partly cuz when i was younger, my parents didn't talk much about the negatives of the Communist Party other than about how shitty the Cultural Revolution was. Anyway, that 's why, ironically, i was anti-traditionalist b/c of chinese influences. just a different chinese era. B)

that skepticism of tradition for the sake of tradition remains to this day. i don't really believe in holding customs in reverence just cuz that's the way my grandparents did it.

[moschikat]

I'm coffeemate! Half and half.

I was born and raised in Texas until I was ten, then I got uprooted and moved over to Thailand.

So riding horses, and slipping some southern slang are a part of my "thing" as much as stepping over the threshold and believing in karma are.

[AngryABCGirl]

I grew up in a predominantly Chinese area of the San Gabriel, so I think I've been lucky to have been brought up in that instead of a Chinatown or an all-white suburb so I've always felt more comfortable and naturally grew up more Chinese than a lot of my Asian-American counterparts. I didn't learn to speak English until after awhile in Elementary school when the teachers realized I didn't know what they were saying. Call it corny but Confucian and Taoist values are an important part of my life today and I swear on a Tatung Steamer.

I've also grow up very American as well, but it feels kind of like a stranger to me sometimes. I still stick out like a sore thumb in Asia though.

[SunWuKong]

i was born in HK and i had my childhood there. my family and i moved to the US when i was 11. that was in 1987. we first lived in NYC, but very soon we moved to a small town in Maine, and i lived there until i went to college. so i experienced HK Chinese culture when i was a child, and New England small town America when i was a teenager, where i became quite whitewashed. my interest in "getting back to my roots" - as cheesy as that sounds, came when i was in college at Pittsburgh, and i became very "Asian American". then a year after i graduated, i went back to HK to live and work for about two years, and i became very acculturated to HK Chinese culture once again. now i consider myself an Overseas Chinese. now i've been back in the US for about a year because of the shitty economy in HK, and would love to go back to HK to live. i consider it home now.

so it was:

FOB->whitewashed->Asian American->BOB/Overseas Chinese

yes, i've been all of it. i should be mr. Asian America.

[kimpossible]

I was born and spent most of my childhood in a small upstate NY town just stateside of Quebec. My father's side of the family is a weird mix of French-Canadian and deep south, so I grew up with some southern food and a lot of French speaking relatives that used a lot of 'eh,' and 'mon dieu' which actually sounds like 'mo doo.' For the sake of the simplicity I'll just say my mom's side of the family came to the US and settled down in the same town and opened an oriental grocery (it's what they called it back then). Between having that identity in a small town and later dealing with a lot of Asian racial epithets at school, I had started to think of myself as Asian.

Then one day I went outside the US to spend some time in an Asian country and found out that I'm basically a white foreigner and or 'cool American cousin.' Nonetheless I was able to accomplish something I'm proud of while there; reunited family members after about 40 years of emotional baggage from WWII.

Essentially I'm a quarterjap poser Asian New Yorker canuckish maple syrup lover who loves a cold glass of buttermilk with some freshly made johnnycake, or a mess of wax beans cooked with a slab of salt pork every once in a while.

[sOKaLiBoY]

i have lived every minute of my life here in los angeles. my area was mostly japanese until they all moved away. i only really know the american culture with a little japanese influence. I'm a yonsei (4th generation), so i don't know much about my family history. actually when it think about, my parents don't know anything about our family history either.


does anyone else have parents that only speak english?

[Fireblade]

Born and raised in San Francisco. I guess living in a city, makes you open to other cultures, and you aren't as judgemental. For a time I was living in the yuppie area of S.F. during most of childhood. I can't say I was white-washed, because I spoke cantonese to my parents, and ate rice and watched KTSF (local chinese channel) at night. But when we moved ourselves out of that area and into the Sunset district of S.F., I became more white-washed. I stopped looking at the chinese channel, and my friends weren't exclusively chinese.

Then during my sophomore year, I went up to Davis, and geebus, I had a sort of culture shock there. I guess it's because I never went to a school predominately white, so I wasn't used to being a minority. During that time, I took in a lot of small town values, and accepted them to a certain degree. Not to mention the whole religious zealot groups in Davis. Yeesh.

Came back to S.F. and became kinda inbetween. I guess I'm a confused 1.5 gen :blink:

[Emperor_Mike]

I grew up with an amalgamation of cultures. As a result, I'm pretty comfortable in most situations and can hold my own.

[YuheiCarreau]

Originally posted by sOKaLiBoY@Jun 13 2003, 11:37 AM
i have lived every minute of my life here in los angeles. my area was mostly japanese until they all moved away. i only really know the american culture with a little japanese influence. I'm a yonsei (4th generation), so i don't know much about my family history. actually when it think about, my parents don't know anything about our family history either.


does anyone else have parents that only speak english?
It's fairly common for 3rd and 4th generation immigrants of any ethnicity, but especially common among JAs because of the internment.

[bankuei]

I grew up in South Seattle, which was very racially diverse(minus white folks), but my father grew up in a black neighborhood, so all of his friends were black. He was a pretty dark chinese dude, so until I was 7, I thought my dad was black and I was too! :)

Anywhow, growing up mostly around black folks and latinos, later more filipinos, thai, laotians, and khmer folks kinda left me short on the Chinese experience. As far as other stuff that made me who I am, I can honestly say its been hiphop, cartoons, HK movies, and a ton of study into culture, religion, and philosophy.

As one of my ex girlfriends put it, "You're a chinese black guy".

Cute, huh?

Chris

[Chris]

I'm a 1.5er who grew up in or around Chinatown. Most of my friends are chinese. Most of them are ABC but I can hang our the FOBs with no problems. I listenting to CPOP KPOP JPOP. I have all types of Asian friends as I expanded through my knowledge of different types of people. Then I found out that I am gay. That circle became bigger and my understandign of mankind was expanded further. I guess I am lucky that I can write all this and be at ease of who I am.

[pinkskyes]

well...my family came to australia in 78 so i'm aussie born n bread...mum's had to study and work all her life so it was hard to keep the language (chinese/viet). it's something i really regret now(especially having gone to asia), even though i hated chinese school at the time...

there were never really that many asian kids at the schools i went to, so it wasn't until late highschool/uni that my circle of friends became dominated by asians...funny how things work out...i used to look at the asian groupies with disdain...now i realise my asian friends share a lot of cultural quirks and values. i love when my friends speak viet to my mum...

[deez nuts]

m.i.t. (made in taiwan) moved to brazil around 13 (i forget) cuz it was easier to get into the usa via south american visa than in taiwan visa. beats me, don't care much about immigration laws. lived in brazil (rio) for a year or so. came to nyc. lived in brooklyn, chinatown and all over queens. parents moved out to dix hills (long island, ny. aka the burbs) to retire around my first or second year of medical school.

never had the cheesy chinese rediscover your roots thing. i'm chinese enough.

never lived anywhere in the usa besides in and around nyc. i'm a lifer. ny is the shiznit.

[kuanyin]

i was born in LA but then hopped over to Taiwan to live til i was six. then gramma said move back, you're american and you're going to american school.

then i came back. lived in SGV for most of my life. like i've said before, i'm the white looking chinese girl. i speak both languages and evefrybody always says "WOW!" you speak chinese. do it again. say something else.! on and on. on both sides. not just the the white or chinese/asian.

now i'm bvery political about my hapa-ness, chinese-ness. i believe its important for POC's to politicize becasue we are at a point in our society where we must organize to fight for basic rights and needs.

that's me.

amy

[punkdrummer56]

<!--QuoteBegin-Chasiubao_Boy+Jun 15 2003, 09:15 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Chasiubao_Boy @ Jun 15 2003, 09:15 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> never had the cheesy chinese rediscover your roots thing.&nbsp; i'm chinese enough.
[/b][/quote]
this thread is depressing. i'll never feel chinese enough.&nbsp; :unsure:

the last time i was in taiwan, i was 4. now, i'm scared to go. like i don't want to realize how bad it sucks that i'll never fit in, so i won't even try.

[hooligan]

<!--QuoteBegin-punkdrummer56+Jul 21 2003, 09:40 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (punkdrummer56 @ Jul 21 2003, 09:40 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Chasiubao_Boy+Jun 15 2003, 09:15 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Chasiubao_Boy @ Jun 15 2003, 09:15 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> never had the cheesy chinese rediscover your roots thing. i'm chinese enough.
[/b][/quote]
this thread is depressing. i'll never feel chinese enough. :unsure:

the last time i was in taiwan, i was 4. now, i'm scared to go. like i don't want to realize how bad it sucks that i'll never fit in, so i won't even try. [/b][/quote]
i've seen your handle some place, are you from another forum??

[SunWuKong]

never had the cheesy chinese rediscover your roots thing.* i'm chinese enough.
this thread is depressing. i'll never feel chinese enough.* :unsure:

the last time i was in taiwan, i was 4. now, i'm scared to go. like i don't want to realize how bad it sucks that i'll never fit in, so i won't even try.

the trick is to not try to fit in. you're never going to be a local, unless you go back and live there for years and years. you're an overseas Chinese. there are many of us all over the world.

[Kennyb]

How did the culture(s) you grew up a part of influenced who you are today?

Is the culture(s) from your past important to you today?

I grew up in a city which there weren't much variety of other ethnic people. So having to go to school, being the only Chinese kid made me start thinking 'Why am I not white?'

It was only when I started going to those Chinese school that I started to make Chinese friends and by the time I was in my teens that I took it more serious by organising soccer clubs that were aimed for Chinese kids around my home city, allowing them to make friends that shared the same culture.

My parents are very traditional to their culture and being the only boy in the famiyl to continue on the surname, they give me quite alot of stick about it, especially my gran.

To answer the last question, yes it was important to me. What I have done in the past has helped me to answer questions about myself. Also, finding these online community where everyone shares the same upbringing, it makes you realise that you are not alone at all.

[Kennyb]

As one of my ex girlfriends put it, "You're a chinese black guy".

Cute, huh?


Over here in England, the phrase that we would use to say something like that is 'Bruise Banana'.

[hooligan]

here's my slant...

i was born in flushing, new york to first generation immigrant taiwanese (culturally, but ethnically chinese) parents. lived there for five years, didn't stay long enough to pick up anything except memories.

moved to cerritos california and lived there for about 2 years. then moved to cypress, california in "the OC". lived there ever since. when i first moved there i lived amongst mostly white folk and latinos. later on, a lot of koreans moved into my neighborhood and so did a lot of vietnamese thanks to the outgrowth of vietnamese american communities from westminister.

and now i'm at ucla getting edumacated. ;D

[Ogumo]

I lived in japan until a few years ago. I lived arounf japanese because that was all that there was around back then. I hung around my grand father alot. He was very odd man. He had a very unique way of seeing the world. He was also a racist. I think this is where I got my racism. He went crazy before died. Told us things that he did in his past. I will not go into it. Because it does not matter. But I he would go on and on about japan and how the japanese are the most civilized of the world. About how evil and violent americans are and how they are hipicrits. (These are things I still believe). But he would talk about other types of people as though he had been with them normally. When I moved to america I was ignorant about what other people were like. I had nothing to go on but what I saw and was told. Because I had never met a non japanese (I had seen them when I traveled out of my town though) I just never made effort to meet. But I live in a area with many asians not to many other races. As you m ay guess my first months here were difficult because of ignorance. But I do think that living here had done good for me.

[teaz0r]

i grew up in asia, europe and north america.
i like to eat sticky rice with a fat steak.

[artsfartsyjanet]

Ok, this is going to turn into my frickn life long history....Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri (not Missouruh like some rural people and politicians say it). I'm Chinese American, American Chinese, Asian, Asian American, whatever.... I really don't care b/c it's just a label and I think I'm just in between the lines really. Anyway, my ancestry is from the Guangduong (Canton) province as far as I know. My fraternal grandfather was the youngest son of a mother who was a second wife to her husband. You know how people just married so many people back then.... Anyway, he took refuge in his teens to Saigon Vietnam because of war. He worked really hard doing a lot of different things... became a taxi driver once. He was also a bodybuilder. I looked at his pictures and (without trying to sound disgusting) he was a hunk!!!!! =) Right now he just looks like a really cute old man that looks like Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid and still strong and loud as ever. I think the loudness comes from his progressing hearing loss. =) Moving on... he met my grandmother in vietnam (also of Chinese descent), got married, had 4 children. The oldest child is my father. My father met my mother through my uncle (father's brother) b/c my uncle went to school with my mom. Then, the Vietnam War era.... my dad worked in the American Embassy in Saigon as part of the South Vietnamese Army. He just did a lot of translating and paper work. Anyway, he had the privilege of taking refuge to the US early. So, he brought my mom and his brother with him. They stayed at a refugee camp for 3 months in Little Rock Arkansas. My parents were lucky b/c I heard other people later had to stay for at least 6 months b/c few people had documentation or immunization stuff. Then they moved to San Francisco, parents got married in Los Angelos, and moved here to St. Louis of all places to start a really small Chinese restaurant. They never express it, but I know they hate working there but do it anyway so that my brother and I can get an education. Working at the restaurant has sacrificed a lot of things... one of which is family. We used to do fun things as a family but now it's just work work and work. And quite frankly, I can't stand it. There are a lot of hardships in my family. While they only see dollar signs, I see a lack of nurture I see with more democratic parents. So, while my story is bittersweet, it has profoundly affected me and the way I see life.

[SunWuKong]

interesting story about my maternal grandfather. for some reason he ended up in Vietnam, and he had nothing but a sleeping mat and the set of clothes that he was wearing. he actually walked back to China, and on the way back, he met a really poor man, and he literally gave the man the shirt off his back. he wrapped the sleeping mat around his body instead.

[ModernLogic]

How did the culture(s) you grew up a part of influenced who you are today?

Is the culture(s) from your past important to you today?

Excellent Question. And here's my answer:

To be brief, Anti-Sinoism made me the man that I am today.

Everybody messes with the Chinese. Whites, Blacks, Mexicans, Japanese, Tongans, Philipinos... you name it. But since most Chinese people are Confucianists (aka wusses) they just take it up the tail-pipe and move on. But not me. My conversion to Chinese Nationalist is a response to the anti-Sinoism I've encountered in my life. It is the only solution to the diatribes and attacks thrown against the Chinese people.

A Chinese Nationalists stands up for his people and fights back the anti-Sinoite factions with teeth and nail.

[ModernLogic]

I lived in japan until a few years ago. I lived arounf japanese because that was all that there was around back then. I hung around my grand father alot. He was very odd man. He had a very unique way of seeing the world. He was also a racist. I think this is where I got my racism. He went crazy before died. Told us things that he did in his past. I will not go into it.

Aww... come on, don't gloss over the good stuff.

How many Chinese women did he rape? How many heads did he chop off?

Nothing makes my blood boil more than hearing some good old Nanjing stories.... (Excellent motivation for weight-lifting)

[SunWuKong]

Everybody messes with the Chinese. Whites, Blacks, Mexicans, Japanese, Tongans, Philipinos... you name it. But since most Chinese people are Confucianists (aka wusses) they just take it up the tail-pipe and move on.


i assume you're talking about the US here. or else i'm not sure how blacks, Mexicans, Tongans, or Filipinos "messed" with the Chinese. and since you're talking about the US, well, hardly any Chinese people in the US are Confucians, in the strictest sense of the word. but if you want to say that Chinese people like to avoid conflicts, i'd agree with that.

[Ogumo]

Aww... come on, don't gloss over the good stuff.

How many Chinese women did he rape? How many heads did he chop off?

Nothing makes my blood boil more than hearing some good old Nanjing stories.... (Excellent motivation for weight-lifting)

Sigh...he was not in nanjing. He did not rape any of the chinese women either. Why do you really want to know? For your entertainment? Does this era amuse you? I already do not like you and you do not like me. Why not end it here? Because if I say something to you i will be the japanese racist.

[Ogumo]

Excellent Question. And here's my answer:

To be brief, Anti-Sinoism made me the man that I am today.

Everybody messes with the Chinese. Whites, Blacks, Mexicans, Japanese, Tongans, Philipinos... you name it. But since most Chinese people are Confucianists (aka wusses) they just take it up the tail-pipe and move on. But not me. My conversion to Chinese Nationalist is a response to the anti-Sinoism I've encountered in my life. It is the only solution to the diatribes and attacks thrown against the Chinese people.

A Chinese Nationalists stands up for his people and fights back the anti-Sinoite factions with teeth and nail.

Yes because everyone wants to jump on the chinese? I think that you are paranoid. It is from what you have just posted here too. Not because you are chinese.