Who likes to know a real Chinese culture? Here is my Summer vacation

[Catherineli]

Helloooooo Guys, Girls----

 

Here I am! I'm back to OUR family! I was at Qiqihar City for ten days for our family reunion. I just texted my experiences on Word. Now I like to share with everyone because I miss you all. By the way

I wonder who could please help me describe in a positive humorous way to mean Chinese people spit out fish bones on the table? I'll appreciate it a lot!

Here is my report:

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I’ve one brother and one sister. We’ve been loving each other since our childhood. Now as adults, we live very far away from each other. I’m from Changchun Jilin Province and my sister still stays in Qiqihar City, the furthest north of China where our hometown is. My brother is from Xiamen City, Fujian Province, very much down to the south. My brother’s prayer is to move our father to Xiamen so that he could be able to take care of him. But Dad is too independent and he chooses to live alone. Our mother passed away fifteen years ago. We decided to go back to Qiqihar City to see our father and have a family reunion during summer vacation of 2014.

I arrived at Qiqihar on the late afternoon of August 10. No sooner had I hopped off the train than my brother, my sister and her husband, Xinchun, ran up to me. Some grabbed my suitcase from my shoulder, some holding my hand but no one hugged me. This is the moment when I started to realize that I had to be Chinese. I had to be docile and submissive. We laughed and talked all the evening over our supper that my sister prepared. I also had my own room at my sister’s house. So I slept soundly like a baby for the first night.
But the next morning I had no idea at what time I was awakened by their quiet walking and talking. Meanwhile, an unmistakably delicious cooking smell greeted me as if saying, “Good morning.” Being Chinese, I didn’t forget Chinese habit. “This is breakfast time. I’d better get up” I told myself. Having dressed neatly, I came to the eating table and glad to have remembered not to say, “good morning” to everyone who would judge me crazy if I did. “Wow!” Many fish on the plate! Many fish eyes were staring at me in exasperation as if saying, “You dare to touch me!” A bowlful of newly steamed plain white rice from my sister broke my dream world. “Sister, Xinchun is very good at frying fish. You see, very much yummy.” Subconsciously I had a glimpse at the clock that was hung up high on the wall. It was seven A.M.! Chewing the rice, smacking my lips and clicking my tongue between the teeth to search the fish bones, I wanted to say, “Sis, please don’t mind me. I don’t want to eat. I can’t tongue out fish bones at this early morning.” Nonetheless, I was very well nurtured with western culture. I also knew my time with my family in China is less and less. Furthermore, my sister loves me all the time and I couldn’t turn down her kindness. So I made myself eat and I also remembered to compliment on their cooking, “hmmmm, very nice-----yummy”. With that, both my sister and her husband placed fish one by one to my bowl until I was bursting. Guess what happened later? They cooked more fish and rice for breakfast three days on end at the same hour in the early morning just because I showed my joy of eating their fish for breakfast! Both my sister and her husband worked during the day and I had most supper with my father. So breakfast was the only opportunity for them to show their love to me.
The next day after I arrived, I went to my dad’s house to see him. My brother was living with my father. It had been 8 months since we parted company last. I really truly wanted to give my father a big hug though I knew it was not Chinese custom. The door was open. There stood my father. “Here I am, Dad!” With that, I was like a bird flying to our dad and at the same time I was swinging my arms around my father’s shoulder. All at once, my father was turned to a frozen stick standing there motionlessly with his hands and back firmly pressed against the wall. I’m glad that my father didn’t call an ambulance to send me to a lunatic hospital. But I’m sure he must have been thinking that American people had successfully turned his first daughter a crazy woman. My brother was standing there, laughing at the two bodies showing the cultural combination of China and America.
The following days saw us having a great time!
We went to the city park. We took many pictures. My sister and I played some silly games in public making fun of our poor brother. My sister dressed my brother like a girl with my big bright scarf. We also played a “preying” game. We paid five yuan for many bamboo rings with which we cast each to prey anything exhibited on the ground. Then I hit a children’s toy of soldiers. My brother got many scrunchies for us girls. I tied my hair at once with one of the scrunchies but lost it soon because my hair was too slippery.
We also visited our aunt in the countryside where we enjoyed their colorful Kang mat on Kang. We took many pictures of their farm or fields. The green crops such as strawberry and string beans can’t be more precious for city people. Our aunt fed us with a cow’s first milk. I’m not sure if there is an English term to mean milk from a cow’s first milk from first birth. Colostrum is what I learned from my dictionary. The milk is very much thick, not watery-liquid at all. We steamed the milk with different Chinese ingredients or spices including salt. It tastes like Chinese tofu. The beestings, the milk, is very hard for our stomach to digest according to our aunt.
We ate barbecue many times either at home or at a restaurant. We ate, ate, and ate everyday! I’m glad they didn’t feed me with smelly tofu and balut, a nearly hatched egg with dead chick in it. Nonetheless, chicken feet are now scratching in my enlarging stomach. Silkworms, too, are fighting in my stomach.
On the fifth day we found our father a woman at a marriage agency! She is very pretty in a good shape. She is twenty years younger than our dad. We brought her home to meet our father! To our surprise, through talking, we knew her daughter’s dream is the same as our brother’s. Her daughter’s home is also at Xiamen City. The woman is moving to Xiamen to be with her daughter;our father is moving to Xiamen to be with his son! But we were afraid that she would not live with our dad’s age being 81. We tried to dress our father younger. We tried to make our father up on the face. We taught our father how to talk romantically to the woman. We helped our father decorate his house like a wedding room. We arranged a nice barbecue dinner for the woman. I bought a pretty dress as a gift for the woman. My brother promised many genuine commitments to the woman at dinner table. He promised to take good care of her in her old age, for example. To be pleased or to be carried away, the woman also told us that she would like to take good care of our father. She said she would wash our father’s feet everyday and shower our father as her commitments. Everything is in God’s hands and no one can be a match maker! We did our best with our labor of love. On the tenth day, August 20, I came back to Changchun leaving the rest to God and to my sister and my brother.

 

In my family, we’ve never said a word of “I love you”. We didn’t hug each other either as it was. But we siblings love being together every minute! My train back to Changchun was scheduled at seven A.M. So I had to leave for the train station at six in the morning. That early morning made a nice fish story again! My sister’s husband, Xinchun, went to the nearby morning wet market at four o’clock and bought back more fish. I can imagine that he would be sitting on a foot stool in the kitchen scaling off the fish one by one. Then he would scoop out all the gut inside of the fish before he washed the fish clean. Finally I could breathe in the succulent smell from his cooking pot. At half past five, my rice and fish were hilariously and aggressively ready for me to eat. My sister asked me again and again to go to her more so she could have more chances to cook fish for me. There is a rive crossing the city called “Nen Jiang River.” The local people take it a source of value. They love eating small fish from the river. The small fish are as big as my palm.
After we said goodbye and after I was settled comfortably in the train seat, I texted them a phone message, “Our next program is Treasure Hunt! Please go and find your gift.” I’d secretly offered five hundred Yuan for each. One share was under my brother’s sheet. Another was buried with my sister’s blanket. I also wrapped the money with a piece of paper on which was my “thank you” poem in Chinese. I’d tried to do some shopping to buy some nice clothes for each of them but none of them allowed me to do that. They said many “NO” instead of “I love you” which meant “I love you”. So I tucked them with money and they tucked me with fish, worms and chicken feet.
The first job after I came home to Changchun, I placed myself on the scale. I see my weight two pounds more. It is the result of my sacrifice of love. Should I be happy or sad with gaining weight?

 

[Joecy]

hi Catherine, welcome back! We miss you!

 

It is very usually to me, to have a full Chinese meal, rice+fish for breakfast!!! Your sister must be very very very happy to see you and went for the extra trouble early in the morning!

 

How to politely tell them that you actually didn't like fish with bone that much, is very challenging!

[amberjack1234]

Welcome back. We ALL missed you. I know very well about being polite to someone saying that you like a particular dish of food because they went to so much trouble to fix it for you even thought you didn't like it. Knowing all the time that you are going to get it again and again. It is kind of a catch 22 situation isn't it? No way to win that one. Just grin and bear it and keep a smile on your face. My wife does not like the balut either but she does love tofu. I don't like tofu but have never had balut and to tell you the truth I don't think that I could keep it down that is if I could even get past the chewing part.

 

I liked your saying "So I tucked them with money and they tucked me with fish, worms and chicken feet."

This is the way it is here at Christmas time.

 

Anyway welcome back and I am glad that you enjoyed yourself. Hope that everything works out for baba. Keep them doors and windows closed.

 

Larry

[Catherineli]

HI Joecy, Larry, Dennis, Danb, sorry I wrote so long! I like to share my life with you guys as I love our CFL and I also like practising English. We used to live in poverty. When I went to college at 18 years old, my sister dropped school and started to work at 16 because she wanted to support me with the college education. Now she doesn't have any International knowledge or she's very much limited to different culture or different mentality.

 

Joecy, thank you for understanding. It's hard to politely decline people's kindness, esp when we don't want to hurt our family. How many times have we experienced "pushing behavior"? At a restaurant, or a department store we hear people pushing loudly "I pay", "No, I pay, you don't", "I pay". That is a part of Chinese fighting custom that I don't like. Sometimes yes means no;no means yes.

 

Larry, you let me laugh! Good idea, keep Dad's windows and doors closed! It's also a good way to prevent people from being allergic to pollens. Multifunctional!!

[danb]

Catherine, I liked your story very much. Your brought up several aspects that are done differently in China and the US. About saying "I love you" ,can you give some examples how love is expressed in China between a husband and a wife? Often I see old couples holding hands in China in public. I notice this less in younger couples. In the US when I see this it is the opposite. I see younger couples showing affection much more in public and older couples showing much less. In fact I think in public much much less. So match making is still alive in China? Reminds of an old movie made in the US in the 60's called "Fiddler on the Roof". In that movie there was old Jewish matchmaker called Yentil or Yenta. Even had a song dedicated to her in that movie. There are several other good songs in the movie. Glad you had a good vacation. Good vacations are the ones to have. Danb

[Catherineli]

HI Danb, you really asked a very good question! If there is no "I love you", how to know "I love you"? that is the part I like American culture, simple and direct. But American people say "I love you" so much that the weight is reduced. They make "I love you" replacing "goodbye".

 

Chinese people have to guess by what people do if they are loved or not. In the1980s we never held hands when we were young. A neighbor lady told me a few days ago that she didn't dare to hold hands with her husband who was her BF because she thought holding hands would make her pregnant. It's hard to believe.

"I love you" is only seen in written Chinese and literature books or movies. In daily life, there is no oral "I love you" between couples. My parents never kissed, hugged or "I love you."

 

Nowadays I can't see any differences between the two countries in romance. You're lucky enough that you've seen old couple holding hands. Chinese people would judge them behind, "The hand-holding couple must be in mistress relationship or in their second marriage honeymoon". It's alright for young couples to hold hands, though.

 

have a good day,

have a hand-holding day!

[Catherineli]

Thanks for the movie, Fiddler on the Roof, it sounds very romantic. I'll watch it online.