How Do You Get Back to Your Roots?

[AngryABCGirl]

I hear this phrase thrown around a lot, but then I wondered, how can you exactly get back to your "roots"? I use roots in quotations because I wondered what is considered getting back to your roots?

My friend went to go teach little kids in Beijing English someone someplace I don't quite know what happened and she said it was to "get back to her roots," but she's from Taiwan and it seemed more to be like "getting easy money and a fabulous and probably promiscious college trip."

I don't think you can really absorb culture, I think culture absorbs you. And how long you stay in it and are into it is how much you end up retaining it outside of it and you can tell when someone else isn't absorbed. There's lots of big things like people's meanings on life to little things like gestures. That as a whole is what I consider being integrated in a culture.

Like for example, I watch a lot of Hong Kong movies, I eat at Chinese places, I would drive a Japanese car if I could, but I don't think that's what makes me Chinese so to speak. That's just me liking things. Sorry I'm not making much sense.

But then there's little things, like when I gesture for people to come over I gesture with my palm facing down with my hands coming toward me, most Americans gesture with their palms facing up, I never really noticed that until my relatives in Taiwan pointed out to be I did it "the right way." I have no idea what they're talking about. Then there's the way people move, their demeanor, I move the way peopel in LA do, you notice this when you go to different places that people tend to move a little different. I can tell when people aren't from around here by the way the move as much as people can tell in Taiwan and the East Coast even if I were wearing their latest fashions. Then there's speech, and thought, and etc.

Which leads back to my now disjointed first point, how can you really get back to your roots then? Is it even worth trying to look for something "out there"? Or is it something simple down inside of you that you didn't know was there before that didn't lie outside with the rest of your life?

The latter is what I consider when I think about how I realized I had "roots," was that they were already there.

[SunWuKong]

wow, this is a complicated one! :)
i'll add in my own thoughts as best as i can...

My friend went to go teach little kids in Beijing English someone someplace I don't quite know what happened and she said it was to "get back to her roots," but she's from Taiwan and it seemed more to be like "getting easy money and a fabulous and probably promiscious college trip."

that's weird. how old was she when she moved from Taiwan? i assume that her family was originally from China? her grandparents perhaps? maybe that's why she felt that going to China would be going back to her roots. well, my grandparents are from a village in Guangdong (mother's side is from a different region, but still in Guangdong). if i went back to my "roots", it would be to those villages, certainly not Beijing. but even then i would raise some eyebrows to myself, because my family is completely unfamiliar with Guangdong outside of HK. my father was born and raised in HK, and my mother moved to HK when she was three. and visiting Beijing would be sort of like visiting a Chinese cultural center for me, instead of going back to my "roots".

for some reason, i'm much more comfortable with saying "root" in Chinese - http://cgibin.erols.com/mandarintools/cgi-bin/ugif/6839.gif - to describe the village that my grandfather is from, than using the word "root" in English.

I don't think you can really absorb culture, I think culture absorbs you. And how long you stay in it and are into it is how much you end up retaining it outside of it and you can tell when someone else isn't absorbed. There's lots of big things like people's meanings on life to little things like gestures. That as a whole is what I consider being integrated in a culture.

yeah i agree with this. when you're really integrated into a culture, you can't just let go of it by your conscious choice. it becomes a part of you and it takes conditioning for that to go away.

Like for example, I watch a lot of Hong Kong movies, I eat at Chinese places, I would drive a Japanese car if I could, but I don't think that's what makes me Chinese so to speak. That's just me liking things. Sorry I'm not making much sense.

But then there's little things, like when I gesture for people to come over I gesture with my palm facing down with my hands coming toward me, most Americans gesture with their palms facing up, I never really noticed that until my relatives in Taiwan pointed out to be I did it "the right way." I have no idea what they're talking about. Then there's the way people move, their demeanor, I move the way peopel in LA do, you notice this when you go to different places that people tend to move a little different. I can tell when people aren't from around here by the way the move as much as people can tell in Taiwan and the East Coast even if I were wearing their latest fashions. Then there's speech, and thought, and etc.

i agree with this, too. this is a big reason i think why it's so difficult for white Americans to grasp the concept of culture (Europeans, on the other hand, have a good grasp of it because there're so many different cultures in such a small piece of space as Europe). they think it's all the trivial things like movies, food, art, and kungfu. and to a certain degree, it applies to some Asian Americans, too, in the way that sometimes they don't realise they're much more American than they are Asian in terms of culture.

Which leads back to my now disjointed first point, how can you really get back to your roots then? Is it even worth trying to look for something "out there"? Or is it something simple down inside of you that you didn't know was there before that didn't lie outside with the rest of your life?

The latter is what I consider when I think about how I realized I had "roots," was that they were already there.

i think to answer this, you would have to do some soul-searching and think about if you feel like you're a minority in this country, or if you feel like you're displaced in this country. for a lot of immigrants, they feel a sense of displacement in this country in that they feel like they don't really belong here. so in that sense, their "roots" would certainly be in Asia. but if you feel for certain that you belong in this country but that you're a minority here, then i'd say your roots is probably in this country.

[nonamerasian]

To me, getting back to my roots would be getting reacquainted with the culture I was raised with, not necessarily "going back" to Africa, Latin America, Western Europe, or South Asia.

If I did that, I'd be going after the roots of my ancestors, not mine.

That's why I sometimes chuckle when people not raised with a certain culture jump into the foriegn culture under the pretense of getting back to their roots.

I think a bit of what you said is true.

The culture absorbs you.

[AliBabaIncorporated]

Well, roots as in your family's ancestry, roots as in the place where you were born, and roots of personal attachment (like the kind people are referring to in the phrase "putting down roots" when you move to a new city and make friends there, get a job, etc.) are two different things. But the modern trend is to lump them together under one word "roots" and even to use that word interchangeably with "culture." People also use "culture" a lot interchangeably with language, mannerisms, social attitudes, family tradition, food preference, and entertainment preference, and assume that having just one or a few implies all of the other seven. Probably accounts for a lot of the muddled thinking on this topic.

Me? I've long given up on the idea of getting back to my roots or teaching my kids about them. My mannerisms and some of my attitudes are heavily Malaysianized, most of my other attitudes and my personal roots are American, and I'd rather be watching Chinese TV and eating Mexican/Korean/Malay food. And the chance that my kids are gonna be anything like this is about zero, everything is gonna be the result of their environment. The only thing I can pass on to them is Chinese language. Probably Mandarin. Which is really ironic since I only bother to keep practicing it in order to make money and communicate with my girlfriend's family. And even if they get fluent they'll probably still be left wondering why their dad doesn't act like a normal Taiwanese/Mainlander/Cantonese.

Actually IMO studying a language is a terrible way to "get back to your roots" cuz unless you're either quite devoted, or just fluent in a related language, you never gain enough ability to ask your relatives anything important about your roots and understand the answer. Learning about traditional dances or festivals is even worse, it makes you think you understand the culture when it wouldn't help you explain any of the attitudes or mannerisms which may be floating around inside of you as a result of that culture.

[SunWuKong]

And even if they get fluent they'll probably still be left wondering why their dad doesn't act like a normal Taiwanese/Mainlander/Cantonese.

i've been thinking about that. i'd prefer to raise my kids in the mainland or HK, and chances are likely that i'd marry an English-fluent overseas Chinese (because those damn local HKer girls are too much headache. :p). i wonder what my kids would think of me and their mother. but i suppose if i send them to international school, maybe they won't think we're too weird.

[AngryABCGirl]

Hmm trying to bump this muddled topic back up, then if we we're talking about the the roots of your family's ancestry like Alibab said, then how can you do anything to get back to it, or is there even a point in getting to know it?

Personally, I think a lot of people do that because they're searching for themselves through something externally to explain who they are internally. And whatever shapes you is hard to figure out when you're young, but bit by bit I think people realize what happened like I'm starting to and I think the answer doesn't lie in some weird odyessy into the "motherland." But that's probably just me.

I was thinking about my family's roots and way back in the day we came from China, although when I'm there now, I definitely feel like a foreigner and I'm not from there. I can't understand what the hell people are saying, especially the Beijinger's with their accents and their mannerisms just don't feel like my own. But when I'm in Taiwan, there's this warm feeling of being in someplace familiar and homely and the way people act that's just feels so right, but you could agrue those aren't my roots. That's why I couldn't really get why my friend went to China, who pretty much has the same background as me, if those people are what (this might be a horribly bad metaphor) what Brits are to Americans, and I can't imagine a WASP going to England or something to find his roots or something.

[Bhodi_Li]

This is a topic that many adoptees struggle with. For example, I was born in Vietnam but I was raised by a pair of Czech dairy farmers. Can I go "back" to a culture that I was never really a part of in the first place? (That's a big reason some advocate for same-race adoptions). I have not been able to return to Vietnam yet, although I do intend on returning. I'm not sure what I will feel when I get there, but I'm pretty sure that I won't have a "returning back home" feeling.

[tapestrybabe]

This is a topic that many adoptees struggle with. For example, I was born in Vietnam but I was raised by a pair of Czech dairy farmers. Can I go "back" to a culture that I was never really a part of in the first place? (That's a big reason some advocate for same-race adoptions). I have not been able to return to Vietnam yet, although I do intend on returning. I'm not sure what I will feel when I get there, but I'm pretty sure that I won't have a "returning back home" feeling.
you said it exactly...
its like... when i do take an interest in korean culture and what not... sometimes i feel its just a side hobby of mine... and it really can never be wholly a part of me... and as for visiting korea... dunno how i may end up feeling about it... cuz its strange, a person who doesnt have any memories of korea... and who has never re visited the place... i've kinda started to develope this sense of connection to the country itself... i would like to one day visit the orphanages that i came from...

i dont know about vietnemese adoptees... but i've actually heard quite a few stories of korean adoptees taking the time out to live in korea for awhile for about a year or so... for whatever reason or another... that concept sounds kinda intruiging... but as for calling it home... dunno... i cant really say at the moment... since the united states is the only place i've been living in basically almost all my life... but i think it would be kinda cool to visit my birth country...

[TTChino]

Hmmmm how much money does teaching engrish in china pay you a year? =D

[deez nuts]

Hmmmm how much money does teaching engrish in china pay you a year? =D

prolly jack shit.

just gonna blow it all on hookers and hunniez from the motherland anyways.

but, it's all about getting in touch with your roots.

[Bhodi_Li]

you said it exactly...
its like... when i do take an interest in korean culture and what not... sometimes i feel its just a side hobby of mine... and it really can never be wholly a part of me... and as for visiting korea... dunno how i may end up feeling about it... cuz its strange, a person who doesnt have any memories of korea... and who has never re visited the place... i've kinda started to develope this sense of connection to the country itself... i would like to one day visit the orphanages that i came from...

i dont know about vietnemese adoptees... but i've actually heard quite a few stories of korean adoptees taking the time out to live in korea for awhile for about a year or so... for whatever reason or another... that concept sounds kinda intruiging... but as for calling it home... dunno... i cant really say at the moment... since the united states is the only place i've been living in basically almost all my life... but i think it would be kinda cool to visit my birth country...

I think you should go to Korea. I spent a year-tour in Korea and just fell in love with it. At first everyone assumed I was Korean (even the Koreans). I would get long lectures by cabbies about how I've lost touch with my heritage. Then I would explain to them in Korean that I was Vietnamese and it was like I was back in the Asian Brotherhood and everything was all right.

This is something I've heard a lot, being an adoptee. Well, you're really not Vietnamese. For some reason that really pisses me off, yet at the same time there's a certain amount of truth to that, depending on how you define Vietnamese. However, if I were to accept the whole "You're not Vietnamese" argument, then that would cut me off from a large part of my heritage. Confused....