Work versus Home, Chinese Culture and American Culture 上班與家庭的時間

We only have a certain number hours to spend in life and the question is how do we spend them? In the U.S. this takes on the debate with feminism about women and careers, being a ‘super mom,’ etc. I think it is wider than that. What do we value, work or home? Time is a clear indicator of that. 一寸光音一寸金, 寸金難買寸光音

Clearly extended family is more highly valued in Chinese culture than in Western culture. Adults spend much more time with their parents and grandparents spend much more time with their grandchildren than in Western culture.

Also, children are welcome in many more social spheres than in Western culture. The 2nd photo here is a real illustration of this. You can see the differences in the reactions of the two parties to noise from our children playing. Recently, I was chasing our smallest one around a Chinese restaurant, playing airplane while flying him in my arms near the tanks of live lobsters and geoduck clams. That would not have gone over well in a formal French restaurant.

However, I think the time which adults spend with their own small children is not that much different at least between the United States and Chinese culture. Part of the reason for this is that when both husband and wife work, Chinese grandparents will often times help our taking care of the children. Other times children will help out in small businesses run by their parents.
Both my wife’s and my parents help out take care of our children. We also have jobs that allow us to spend a good part of the week with our children. Oftentimes I am able to take my children out in the middle of the day and then work until late at night after everyone is asleep.

Hong Kong 香港, 我的印象

A post I saw on another blog complained about Hong Kong. It is true that Hong Kong hardly lives up to its English name of “Pearl of the Orient” and certainly does not live up to its Chinese name of 香港, which means literally “fragrant harbor.” But if one appreciates Hong Kong for what it is, it’s not a bad place. Fun shopping and dining.

I always thought of it as the Las Vegas of Asia, but that's not quite it. I remember when I first went over to East Asia, I took a break from studying/working in Taiwan in Hong Kong. I stayed in one of the inns crammed into the decaying mass of concrete that was the old Chung King Mansion and was wandering out on the streets at about 1:00 am. I saw this large crowd of people gathering around a street corner. When I looked around I saw a well-dressed businesswoman beating up on this guy who climbed over a barricade and ran away.

People from Guangzhou 廣州 don't act like those from Hong Kong. They are much nicer so it's not the cultural region of China. It's just the origin of Hong Kong that seems to influence things.

沒有歸屬感
People came from other places to make money quickly and hate the British. There is little in the way of culture, especially for a city of its size, just the sound of quick money being made. Think of the movie industry that used to be in Hong Kong and the types of movies they used to turn out: gangster movies, slapstick comedies and martial arts movies.

Things seem to be changing though. I notice a difference in the Hong Kong people I have met, but that is just my personal impression.

Chinese Wedding Reception Traditions

We went to a wedding reception tonight held in a Chinese restaurant nearby. In every culture, people usually revert to traditions during marriages. Although my wife’s cousin got married to his wife in Taiwan, the dinner reception we attended tonight was no exception. Wishing them 白頭偕老, or being together until their hair turns white.

The wedding couple has to pour tea for every adult at the reception starting with the parents first. Then periodically they have to go around to each of the tables drinking a toast to everyone at the table. This means that the bride and the groom usually get very little to eat, but since this was a reception rather than the actual wedding reception people went easy on them. They only had to make 3 or 4 rounds of drinking at every table.

A tradition probably common to weddings everywhere is the heavy drinking relatives. There is usually an uncle or two who get progressively more drunk as the evening wears on. They get louder and usually quite a bit friendlier after the dinner is winding down. It is at this point that I am usually asked to sing as a representative 外國人, but fortunately this was not a singing-friendly group so I also got off easy tonight.

As expected dinner was great! It was almost all seafood, lobster, crabs and different types of fish. The only exception was my favorite, roast pigeon 鴿子 with salt, pepper and lemon. Now, if you are a Westerner I know you are thinking ‘yech, but give it a try before you knock it….these aren’t your average park-bench pigeons.

I haven't really but scratched the surface of traditional Chinese weddings, but if you're interested this site has some interesting items for sale and describes some of the traditions.

3 Types of Cross Cultural Marriages 三種跨文化夫婦

As promised, here are the 3 patterns of cross-cultural marriages I have observed. These photos have nothing to do with the topic but they are at our recent outing to a city park up in a canyon a little more than 3000 feet above sea level ~海拔3100尺.)

The first 單文化的 is when the wife completely adapts to the culture of the husband. In the United States where an American husband (of whatever race) marries a woman from another culture this seems to be the norm. These are often good marriages. The woman from another culture absorbs American culture and tries to becomes what she feels is the ideal of an American wife. (Note that this also happens to expat husbands who sometimes settle in the land of their wives and blend in. We met a Western pastor married to a Taiwanese woman who worries that his children speak no English or German. He is German.)

We know a couple where the wife has it down to the fine china at dinner and what type of fork should be used where, which is a mystery even I don’t understand. Her home culture in East Asia is relegated to a knick knack on the shelf here and there. The husbands tend to get along well with their wives in these types of marriages, but I often get the feeling there is missed potential somewhere. Maybe it is in the way the wives crave some sort of contact with their home culture whenever the opportunity comes up, but there seems to be something missing from the husband’s lives as well.

The 2nd type is the purely bicultural 雙文化的 family where both spouses enjoy each other’s cultures and can speak each other’s language. 對大家都有利. The husband learns and enjoys the wife’s language/culture and the wife does the same for the husband. These are the best marriages that leave a legacy to all around them. In a temporary form of these type of relationships, one spouse, usually the wife, plays a bridge between the cultures and helps the spouse to learn. They are the bilingual ones who help negotiate understanding when perhaps the other spouse has not yet negotiated the differences.

The 3rd type is the dysfunctional one 變態. Both spouses are upset at each other and they refuse to like or even understand the cultural (or personality) differences between them. 沒有溝通Often this stems from immaturity on one or both. I have even seen the incredible situation where 2 people get married and they refuse even a common language! I have helped as a translator in one or two of these situations. At least it isn’t easy to argue if you can’t speak to your spouse.

Cross-Cultural Marriage 跨文化夫婦

This is my wife trying to get ready to go out to our friend’s house while I am annoying her here by taking photos of her. This is seconds before I am given two large containers to take down to the car and make myself useful. Since she always looks pretty, I can’t think of a better subject to use tonight.

For all you single friends, family and lurkers out there, some advice about choosing a spouse. Cross-cultural relationships can be wonderful, but you must love your spouse’s culture as well as your spouse. I speak from this perspective because I love both in my marriage, as you can see from this website and we have a great relationship.

Cross-cultural relationships are great in that they bring a fresh perspective into a relationship. I think that growing up in a culture we get used to the idea that our way is the only way. It’s not the much talked about intolerance that we hear bandied about but just we don’t know anything different. We may really know our way well, but really be 井底之蛙. Cross-cultural relationships help us to see an entirely different way of doing things and provide the option to pick and choose which way is best. They also provide lots of variety and excitement as I am still discovering in my marriage. Stay tuned for the next post while I talk of the 3 patterns I see in cross-cultural relationships.

Boys Across Cultures 弓箭手

No matter how people raise them, boys have similar characteristics across cultures. This is a photo of our smallest one, who at just 2 is trying out his archery skills. Our boys like playing war, chasing and beating on daddy. Both boys have liked making weapons out of things not to harm others but to play. It is just as much physical contact as our daughter but in a different way.

Our sons also of course like to us to read stories to them and to just hold them. Last Saturday morning as my wife took our daughter to ballet class 舞蹈班 and our older son to Chinese class, I was watching Bambi for the 501st time with our youngest son while holding him and tickling his toe every couple minutes.

When our little one plays with boys in the park or in church it is in physical games, mock war, stretching each other, sitting on each other, etc. We don’t treat them any differently except to react to them in the way they most like, and we certainly don’t teach them these differences, but they happen anyway.

One big difference I think is the degree of communication between males. In Chinese culture, there seems to be a high degree of communication between males who form fairly close friendships. It’s not true for everybody, but it seems to be a general rule. I have for example, formed friendships with several Chinese males despite differences in culture and background. Hopefully, that is one thing we can encourage with lots of family time together.

Lantern Festival 元宵節

We went to the Lantern festival. Now in some places the Lantern Festival is really impressive. Chinese lanterns are really beautiful, especially at night and out on a lake. People are also supposed to eat Yuan Xiao dumplings 餃子.

For us where we are, it was not quite that much fun but there is a nice outdoor festival. As usual it was really crowded with performers and shoppers. Part of the fun of going to these things is buying small little fun things. I got a small laser toy for our son and a small fan for our daughter, all for a cheap price.

You can see in this first photo one of my favorite places to go...for my toy. At these outdoor festivals books and videos are cheap, so I like to browse in these types of stalls. The second photo shows a seller of pets. I like the expression on the merchants face and on the boy who is looking in at them.

The last photo is of the street on one side of the festival in front of a Northern 山西 ‘broad noodle’ restaurant. A woman has her baby on her back, which is really the way to go in these crowded places. We have often thought of what to do with our little one who has a little too much energy for his own good in places like this. Maybe we could get on of those baby leashes, but he isn’t going to like that.

Peaches 桃子

It’s peach blossom time, at least in our backyard! These are photos of our ‘tropical white’ peach tree that was developed specially for warm climates. It blooms 花開 at the beginning of February 二月初 and fruits from the beginning of April 四月初 until May. Normally, peaches require at least a certain number of nights of ‘chill,’ under 50 degrees, in order to fruit. In our area, the temperature rarely gets that low so this was a natural choice of tree. As you can see it has lots of blossoms this year. It is also attracting bees to the pollen, one of which I caught in the photo below.

We also have our “last chance” peach, which fruits at the opposite end in October and November. It is an incredibly ugly looking peach though it tastes really good. I brought one into the office to show to the secretary and in an obvious Crocodile Dundee imitation took one look at it, chuckled and said “you call this a peach??” She then pulled out this massive, flawless Asian-gift-style peach and said, “this is a peach!” But as in everything, never judge a book by its cover or a peach by its skin. Obey your taste, as they say incoherently in those advertisements.

Peaches in Europe were originally thought to have been from Persia, but there are records of them being cultivated in China at least as early as 1000 B.C. Peaches are also a symbol of long life in Chinese mythology 長生不老. They can be seen as the stars of many a Tang or Song dynasty painting.

It was 87 degrees today! I took my daughter to the park and we talked with some other parents, one of whom had just arrived from far away. Despite a lot of work in the mornings and late evenings to keep up, this is a relaxing time for us.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon at the Beach 冬天的下午在沙灘

My wife took our little one to visit a friend out in the east today after church, so I went with our 2 older ones to the beach. For some reason digging is popular right now with them. You can see here in the 1st photo they are imitating a dog digging a hole for a bone, which of course I don’t really know if they do since I’ve never had a dog but that’s what I have heard. The other 2 photos are a nice one of a sailboat and the pier.

With temperatures in the 80s, it was nice enough to go swimming today, sorry to say for all of reading this from blizzard-stricken areas. The only problem I have is sand, especially with little ones. No matter how many times feet are washed and cleaned, it always seems to grind its way into the carpet.
Some areas of the Chinese world have really nice coastlines. They are very beautiful. In Taiwan, I can think of the East Coast, which is dotted with such beautiful islands as Orchid Island 蘭嶼 or Green Island 綠島. The scenery is spectacular though a little dangerous as our friend demonstrated for us driving up the East Coast highway, speeding past cement trucks overlooking a beautiful 1000 or 2000 foot drop into the ocean. Sanya 三亞 in Hainan Island is also supposed to be nice. The actual beaches though do not appear to be as nice as what one can find in say Thailand or Cancun.

Eileen Chang 張愛玲 (A Great Chinese Author of the Modern Era)

This book I am reading 同學少年都不賤, a book describing Eileen Chang’s former classmates is really absorbing. A good author can project one into a situation despite the distance of time, age and culture. Chang brings the reader into a particular point in time and you are really there despite the fact that the people and places she describes are long vanished.

She apparently was most famous for a short period of time during the early 1940s in wartime Shanghai, though she died alone not too long ago (1995) in an apartment in West Los Angeles. Her outlook on life was formed during her unhappy childhood and during this turbulent period of time in what was a vanishing life for many people in pre-revolution coastal China. That is probably why her memories of high school, college and early adult life are particularly poignant. Difficulties have that effect on people’s lives.

I know I can remember difficult times in my life that happened years ago as if they were yesterday and they’re not painful memories by any means. I can remember what I ate, the fun times and emotions I had in the midst of difficult circumstances. On the other hand, good times seem to fly by. That’s probably one reason why I keep a blog. My life is (our lives are) so good at this point, and so different in some ways, that I want to remember.

Lunar New Year Housewarming Party 新年新房聚會

Yes, it’s a Lunar New Year housewarming party! Friends of ours have recently gotten married and moved into a nice townhouse, so our cell group at church joined them to celebrate. It is a nice newer 2 story townhouse with space downstairs for a living room and people to meet and the bedrooms upstairs.

Notice there were people from 3 generations and sometimes as many as 4 generations there. One couple was especially well equipped to enter the year of the dog. They have 3 well-educated dogs (they passed rigorous classes) and I suspect a couple of wolves wandering through their property part time as well.

A nice tradition is to wish everyone some sort of good things or blessings at the New Year. So, we all took turns doing that in our own way. Then we played a group game that appealed to our people of all ages, with different movements that one person changes and the others follow. The person in the middle must guess who is the ‘leader,’ changing the movements. Our daughter did a good job of being the leader in one of the rounds.

We also saw a very moving story on a television program 請聽我說(which if you click on the hypertext you can see it too in streaming video 網路串流影音with a high speed connection) that was produced by people we know. Then people that who wished to do so shared about past experiences they had….a story-telling time. Of course there was lots of good food. It was a pot luck dinner and someone provided what is everyone’s favorite, strawberries dipped into melting chocolate.

恭喜發財 It's the Year of the Dog!



Happy Lunar New Year, a little belated but it's a long holiday. I won't waste time talking about the meaning of the Chinese Year, you can probably get that from a zillion websites, but I can talk a little about how this year of the dog has started for us. To some, dog is man's best friend but I have always preferred other pets. Cats are twice the intelligence with half the maintenance and monkeys are as fun as well a whole barrel of monkeys, but that's another discussion. Come to think of it though, a cute dog like the one in the clip art above would be good for a dinner those cold winter nights...

One tradition is that our children receive 紅包 or a red packet that contains money from older relatives. A second tradition is that we eat 年糕, which is a sticky rice cake. It is made in different ways in different parts of China. Sometimes it is sweet and sometimes it is salty (this link describes a recipe from Ningpo near Shanghai). To us it also means various festivals, parades and a special event I'll talk about in our next post.

Activities onboard ship 船上的活動

Onboard ship there are all sorts of activities since as I said in the last post, the journey not the destination seems to be the purpose of a cruise.

First is getting sea sick. For all of you disease and pathology fans out there, this colorful term is appropriate “上吐下瀉 “ which literally means throwing up out of the top end and running out of the bottom end. My wife got a little sea sick the first night and somehow I felt it was not appropriate to mention this term to her even though it did come to my mind in thinking about boat trips. I remember fondly a trip on the Bay of Fundy from Maine to Yarmouth Nova Scotia which supposedly has some of the highest tides in the world where I was so seasick that…well you probably don’t want to hear about it.

Second is sightseeing in port. Since we did not have much time in port, we just took a quick trip to see a major site and then walked around the town. In this first photo, there is a volcanic geyser by the ocean that sprays up every few minutes.

Third is sports. It was a beautiful warm sunny day and so our family went up on deck. I went swimming in the salt-water pool and my wife won the women’s ping pong tournament!!! In the 2nd photo you can see her in mid-flight dunking a basket ball.

日落 Last, but certainly not least, is enjoying the sunset. Since the weather is relatively dry in the seas in that area, we had a nice sunset our 3rd evening. We captured the sunset at different times, but in the 3rd photo you can see it at an earlier time.