From China, Living in the US

    Although my parents have lived more than half of their lives in America, they feel most connected to their roots in Tianjing, China. They are more fluent at Chinese than they are at English and their parents, brothers and sisters all live there still. Everyday my mom cooks Chinese food for dinner and when they speak English there is still a hint of a Chinese accent. Being from China is a big part of who my parents are in terms of language, culture and ethnicity. The current generation of my family includes my parents and myself as well as my brother. The current generation of my family relates to Tianjing China because for me it provides a sense of myself that I never knew and for my parents it developed their personalities.

    This past summer I traveled to Tianjing China to visit my aunt, cousin and grandparents. While I was there I also had the opportunity to travel to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing. While I was there, I felt rather alienated which was strange because in American not everyone looks like me while in China everyone does. Not only that but I was staying with my own flesh and blood, and yet I felt as if I was staying with a group of strangers since I hadn’t seen them since I was 5 (Cite: Image #1). When I would go shopping with my cousin everyone knew I was a “foreigner”, as they called me, because they could hear an accent when I spoke Chinese. I felt like a jellyfish in a sea of octopuses. I didn’t feel as if I belonged, and because I was from America, the other Chinese people saw me as an outsider. I didn’t understand customs or manners. For example, people would expect you to eat as much as you can at each meal because this shows respect to the cook, but when I first got to China I didn’t eat that much because I wasn’t used to the food. I was also very cautious about eating food from street vendors because I was concerned about the sanitation of the food, but the Chinese eat it all the time because it’s cheap and tasty. However, the more I stayed in China, the more I felt at home because of how at home my relatives made me feel. I also became accustomed to speaking Chinese on a daily basis. According to Wang Gungwu in his book Ethnic Chinese, “The ethnic Chinese living overseas acknowledge the given or known history of their own community for as long as possible by reproducing what is approved and considered desirable. That they weave their own personal pasts in an inclusive way. This is something that modern education and technology have begun to make possible” (Wang 4). I use technology to connect to my Chinese roots by using skype with my aunt. I have become more aware of my culture and even though I will always feel like a visitor when I go to Tianjing, it makes me proud to know about where I’m from and my heritage. I feel connected to Tianjing because it is part of my history and even if I don’t feel connected to it, it will always be a part of me.

My parent’s names are Liu Hong and Wang XiaoChun but in order to adjust to American culture and to avoid awkward pronunciations of their given names, they adopted “American” names. My mom goes by Sharon and my dad goes by Alex. Even though they lived a poor childhood in China, my parents have lived a fairly well-off life in America. They first moved to South Carolina in order to attend graduate school at the University of South Carolina on a full scholarship (Cite: Image #2). They then moved to a “middle class” apartment for a couple years before buying their first house (Liu, Hong. Personal Interview). As Brownstone explains in his book The Chinese-American Heritage, “new Chinese-American immigrants immediately moved into the mainstream of American life. They tended to live in high-income mixed communities, rather than in ethnic communities, though many of them also became active in Chinese studies” (Brownstone 112). Since then, we have moved to a new house in a upper middle class neighborhood where most of our neighbors are white. Living more than half their lives in America, my parents are fairly adjusted to life here, but they are prime examples of the fact that where a person is raised is more influential than where they end up. My parents still don’t understand some slang, never watch football and until a couple years ago when I finally learned how to cook, we never had a traditional turkey Thanksgiving dinner. My parents are connected to Tianjing, not just because it was where they grew up but because it developed their personalities, manners, language, everything about them was molded and shaped by their upbringing in China. Even though having “two cultures is a blessing to have” Tianjing will always be my parent’s “first home” (Liu, Hong. Personal Interview).

Although my parents and I are thousands of miles away from Tianjing, China, it will always be an important city in our lives. For my parents, it will be their home. For me it will be a part of my background. As shown through academic articles, my own photographs and personal interviews, Chinese people living overseas have been able to easily adjust to middle class life but are still connected, through technology and communication, to their roots.

Bibliography:

Brownstone, David. The Chinese-American Heritage. 1st ed. USA: Facts on File, 1988. Print.

Wang, Gungwu. Ethnic Chinese . 1st ed. Brisbane, CA: Fong Brothers Printing, 2000. Print.

Liu, Hong . Telephone Interview. 11/20/11

Image #1:

Image #2: My mom as a graduate student at the University of South Carolina.