Family and Culture

Sometimes I think about my parents and all the things they had to encounter in their lives, and they are only around 50 and 60. I think of my grandmother and all the things she had to encounter in life. My grandmother was so young during the Sino-Japanese War. She doesn’t tell the stories, but I can only imagine the horror and fear she experienced. My parents and grandmother all immigrated from China to Canada. All three had to build their entire lives again in a foreign country with a foreign language and a foreign culture. My parents and grandmother still speak in broken English and they don’t fully understand the culture or customs here. They never will, but they have made it so far in their lives, both physically and figuratively.

Once I was walking down the street and talking to someone, this 30-something Caucasian Canadian male told me that he didn't understand how immigrants could live in a foreign country for decades and pick up so little of the language. I cannot remember what I told him that day. He may be right though. I suppose it is strange to move to a foreign country, be immersed in a different language and culture, yet remain so isolated from it. The short answer is that my parents and grandmother were working and they didn't have time to sit in a classroom and learn the language and the customs.

Talking to different children of immigrants and listening to different stories from popular figures, everyone's story is different. This point is very loudly expressed in Eddie Huang's memoir, Fresh Off the Boat. We all have different experiences of the reconciliation of American/Canadian and Asian cultures. It shapes us, the children, in so many different ways. There are a lot of positive stories but also, a lot of negative stories and assumptions.

Sometimes I don't know how to talk to my parents. My mother tells me I've changed and she doesn't understand the things I do anymore. I am now an awkward mix of my Chinese background, Western education, mixed upbringing and the fast pace, large information of the Internet. Some days, I find it hard to find a sense of community anywhere. But other days, like today, I think about how far we have come as a world to allow all of this to happen. As I grow older, I see the world become more interconnected. Trade is no longer just economical. There is so much to the world and its people.  Today, I think about how proud I am of my parents and grandmother who left their lives behind to start this new one. I think about how grateful I am that they did, to try to allow something more for future generations like me.

We are small, but we are powerful and the world is beautiful.

Included in the above are old photos of my parents and grandmother when they were young, old family photos, and recent pictures of my friends and I.