Chinese adults frequently call me "jook-sing", a pejorative Chinese slang used to describe westernized Chinese kids. According to Wikipedia,
In the United States and Canada, "jook-sing" is a pejorative Cantonese term used to describe fully Westernized American-born or Canadian-born Chinese. "Jook-sing" means a grain-measuring container made of bamboo. Bamboo is hollow and compartmentalized, thus water poured in one end does not flow out of the other end. The metaphor is that a jook-sing is disconnected from both cultures because he cannot reconcile East-West cultural differences: water within the jook-sing does not flow and connect to either end. The jook-sing is categorised as having Western-centric identities, values and culture.
Recently, my family invited friends over for dinner. Among the guests was Daniel, a friend about my age, also Chinese and Canadian. After dinner, Daniel and I had a discussion that exposed our ignorance of traditional Chinese values. Here's what was said,
Daniel: I want to live in downtown. I work there. All my friends are there. All the parties are there. How can you not love downtown?
John: Why don't you get a place down there?
Daniel: Well, I was thinking about moving in with Jessica (Daniel's girlfriend) and her family. Her house is in Chinatown. It's across from where your restaurant use to be.
John: And her family will let you?
Daniel: Yup, Jessica's parents love me. And I'm pretty much there all the time. When it gets late, Jessica's parents practically force me to stay overnight. They've got plenty of rooms to spare because all of Jessica's sisters are married and living with their husbands. So that leaves four extra rooms in the house.
John: Jessica has four sisters? That's a big family. So all is good right?
Daniel: Hah! I wish! My mom is mad over the whole situation. I told her today that I planned to move in with Jessica and she went nuts. She started saying things like, "You're not my son anymore. What kind of man are you? Can you imagine what our friends will think of our family? They are stealing my only son!" I have no idea what's wrong with my mom.
John: Oh, that's weird. Your mom always seemed sensible to me. She probably has a reason for being angry.
Daniel: She said something like, "In Chinese tradition, a man should never move in with a woman's family. It is supposed to be the other way around. If you move in with Jessica's family, it means you are giving away our family name. And when that happens, you will have dishonoured our entire family. Our friends will laugh at us. We will not be able to show our face in public anymore. We lost our only son!"
John: I had no idea your mom was so traditional.
Daniel: I know! My parents have always been pretty liberal. Because of them, I don't know the first thing about my heritage. I don't even know how to write my name in Chinese. So imagine my surprise when she reacted the way she did. My last girlfriend was brown and they 'almost' liked her. So I don't understand what the big deal is. This is Canada. I am Canadian. Why should I be bound by these archaic Chinese traditions?
John: Yeah, your mom isn't being very consistent. Why let you date a brown girl, then scold you when you break a few Chinese customs?
Daniel: My mom said it's because Jessica's family is a traditional Chinese family. If they were a typical Canadian family, then she wouldn't fuss over the situation. But because Jessica's family is traditional and they do not have a son, for them to take me into their family is like stealing from my mom. My mom takes it personally. She says it's an attack. According to her, "They understand the significance of their actions and that is why it makes this whole ordeal evil! They are intentionally doing this to destroy our family! They are stealing my only son! "
John: Oh wow, that's pretty cool (I praise the craftiness of it all). I mean, that's very interesting. So what will you do now?
Daniel: I like downtown. It's practical to move into Jessica's house.
John: Shouldn't you be considerate of your mom's feelings?
Daniel: But she's not making any sense. She's being unreasonable. She's blowing everything out of proportion.
John: Based on her values, it makes a lot of sense. It's your responsibility to resolve these East-West cultural differences. So I don't know, do whatever you think is right.
Daniel: I probably won't move in with Jessica. If I did, my mom would end up in a mental institution.
With Daniel's permission, I shared this story with a couple of my Chinese-Canadian friends and our parents. My friends thought moving into a girl's house was unusual but not heretic. Our parents however, sided with Daniel's mom.
According to my mom, the fact that Jessica's parents gave birth to five daughters in Canada is a clear indication that they were trying to conceive a son. It would also explain why Jessica's parents are so eager to have Daniel live with them, because it would be the same as having a son. With a new man in the house, Jessica's parents would have boasting rights. Daniel's parents, on the other hand, would lose the respect of their friends, many of whom come from rural Chinese villages.
**Random Notes
Remarks Chinese adults commonly use to insult jook sings,
"Jook sings are ingrates. They get a job, move out and leave their parents on the streets."
"Jook sings will choke to death on fishbones when they eat non-boneless fish."
"Jook sings don't eat rice. They eat hamburgers and french fries."
"Jook sings can't speak Chinese."
Sounds like your friend's mom is more worried about her reputation, and the "traditional values" she claims to be upholding is just a cover. Unfortunate for her son.
my parents are really inconsistent in re: to traditional v. liberal values too. while its hard for a guy, it must be really, really hard for a girl.
that being said, if he wants to move in with his girlfriend, they should just move in together in their own place. living with his parent's girlfriend won't do much for anyone...
@florian and colin: I can really say I'm a jook sing because I see your point of views, but I also understand the perspective of the older immigrant chinese generation, and its hard to choose one over another. For our parents, reputation and traditional values are a packaged deal, you can't separate the two. Your reputation depends on how closely you adhere to your values. If you have insuborinate kids, other Chinese people will be quick to criticize your parenting skills and may jump to conclusions like, "The Lai's don't have any family values," which is really really bad, because chinese people value family as the #1 virtue of all virtues.
So why is reputation so important to parents? Well, remember the first time you tried to get a job? I remember mine. It took me forever to find my first job, which happened to be at the CNE. Now, take those experiences, and compound the problem by adding:
- new to foreign country
- do not speak the language
- no marketeable skills
- no friends
- only got enough money to survive one month
- your family is starving back in home country
- you're in massive debt to human traffickers
How do you overcome these odds? THe answer is "reputation". It's what will help you merge with society and get you a job. That is why reputation matters so much to the older immigrant generations. It's what helped them survive and establish themselves in a foreign land.
My mom understands this, so she uses our family reputation in Chinatown to help other new comers get a job. My mom will say, "Hey, i know people the manager at Supermarket Y. They trust me. Let me get you a job there." If our family's reputation were damaged, we'd have a lot of trouble helping others.
SO that's the value of reputation to the older Chinese people. And of course, that value comes at a cost, which Daniel now realizes. That reputation is what helped hs parents survive in Canada and raise him, but it's also constrains him from exercising western notions of independence (especially when chinese people think the Family first, Self second).
Hey, maybe i should turn this into a feature article for next month
When you put it that way, i understand. I think Anthony's right though, those two should just get their own place. Who wants to live with their girlfriend/boyfriend's parents?
Fascinating, John. Sadly, Daniel and his parents live in different cultures, where Daniel's is unpredictable and complex - what is HIS reputation going to be? He's probably got a range of peers each with their own acculturation experience, so no matter what decision he chooses, someone will disapprove. That being said, I'm positive in rural China there would have been ways to resolve the situation, some act that an impoverished boy's parents can do to regain some balance with a wealthy daughter-in-law's family. Perhaps it is as simple as acknowledging that there IS a class difference - something that would have been painfully obvious in rural China but is more hidden (yet just as painfully present) here. This may not be exactly the underlying issue, my point is that each culture is complete on its own, and that both traditional and Canadian cultures offer solutions to common problems. Unfortunately I think us people of two cultures don't actually have access to the full and varied repertoire of acceptable culturally sanctioned solutions. For example, we think the Canadian "norm" is to leave home when you're 18, yet most Canadians I know have not done that. I realize I have no idea what the Canadian way of resolving a class difference is - because my "elders" are not Canadian. But this was not a problem my own "elders" had to deal with back home, so I don't have an Argentinian solution either. I have confidence these solutions are out there though.
great article and interesting conversation following it...
should get wider circulation
I feel lucky I get John's updates otherwise would miss all this,
heather b
John, I see where you're going. There is however a distinct difference between "Daniel behaving badly" (might be looked upon as family X has no values) and "Daniel is moving in with his gf's parents" which I somehow doubt would create the same sort of backslash for Daniel's family. Sounds to me more like the mom just doesn't want to let go of her son just yet :).
@avp and colin: Yup, Daniel arrived at Anthony's solution. So now he's saving up for a new place with his gf. And girls do have it tougher..in fact, i remember a few chiense ladies tell me the reason they married a western husband is because they detest the patriarch nature of traditional chinese culture.
@florian: You almost got it. The Chinese government knows that their culture needs to undergo a massive update. As an example, there is or going to be a female shortage in china because of the combination of the 1-child policy and a preference for male. China knows it has to change people's attitudes towards females if they are to create a sustainable population. But changing a culture takes at least 2 generations. If you try to do it any faster than that, you're asking for a trouble. So for this generation, Daniel's mom truly believes her family's honour is in jeopardy, which can realistically lead to other problems (eg. Daniel's mom might not be able to borrow money from some friends)
Did you know that a chinese person's name starts with his family name first? That should indicate the importance of family to the Chinese people. It's almost as if the individual doesn't even exist.
John it's funny you said that. Check out this story from The Onion!
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30438?utm_source=slate_rss_1
I think it's good that your friend and his girlfriend decided to move into their own place because regardless of what I think of his mom's attitude, I think it's better that way. It could be just some Asian mindset thing but moving into the girlfriend's house leaving his parents behind doesn't sound right to me. Personally I don't think your friend's mom was being reasonable-probably because I don't quite understand the value she was talking about-but I could understand it if she was reacting the way she did simply because she didn't want him to leave his parents behind. Nevertheless I've often thought that Chinese values are frequently carried out to the extreme, because every now and then I see that happening. It seems to me that some people carry out those values for the sake of doing so, not because they treasure the value itself. But of course this doesn't only apply to the Chinese.
By the way, I never noticed the reason why family name comes first for Chinese names was that! Korean names are the same too. Now that I think of it that really makes sense.. and thanks for the update!
John, you should add a "Jook-sing and proud" T-shirt to your wardrobe and wear it to any occasion that involves a lot of 'traditional' chinese families :D.
It's a pity when people choose to ignore the world they live in and pretend they are still living in a village and subject their children to some ridiculous 'traditions'. There are traditions worth following and then there are times when you need to put your foot down and get rid of it. We live in Canada and we need to adopt/keep traditions that bring people together not divisive/irrational ones.