Mother’s Day 母親節 Mother and Child relationship in Chinese and Western Culture 母子關係: 中國與美國

Mother’s Day母親節 is coming up and it brings out some interesting cultural differences 文化不同的地方. It is my observation that the mother-daughter relationship is closer in Chinese culture than Western culture, not surprising. Daughters keep in touch, go out with their mothers regularly and respect their opinion. But despite years of attacks on mother / adult daughter relationships -“boundaries,” “control,” and other such psycho-babble I’m sure you’ve seen before. But still, these relationships still seem ok in the west 母女關係. The big difference is in mother-son relationships. Mothers and sons are very close in Chinese culture where as it seems almost a joke or almost a bad thing in Western culture…“separation issues”. Where as American culture is replete with images of the son who forgets to send a card once a year on Mother’s Day, Chinese culture is filled with images of the son who accompanies and obeys his mother 孝順的兒子. I guess I am a relatively “good” son by Western cultural standards 自己認為從西方的文化標準來看已經算不錯, 但是….. I keep in touch and go out with my parents at least once a week, though my wife’s viewpoint of me as a son is not the same…cultural viewpoint difference.

We are thinking of how to celebrate Mother’s Day with 2 sets of mothers, not including my wife, with 2 sets of cultures. We will take our my mother-in-law to a Chinese-style Korean BBQ 韓國烤肉 restaurant that serves up lots of dozens of types of fresh meats in BBQ. I am looking forward to that! Then we will take them to a special Mother’s Day outreach 外展 at our church, featuring one of my favorite Chinese Christian musicians, Amy Sand 盛曉玫. The next day we will take my parents to a French restaurant run by people who know how to do it well. A Vietnamese-Chinese couple who lived and studied in Paris for many years knows how to make French food 法國餐 well at a decent price. They don’t offer much choice, but they do well what they do.