Teaching Chinese culture to your kid

[tonado]

http://www.chinasprout.com/community/guestcolumns/17

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Great article, Tony.

 

It made me think about the future and any children that ShuPing and I could be blessed with. What will he/she be like and how will ShuPing feel about raising an American? How will I feel about raising a Chinese child? Of course, I have the advantage, we'll be living here, but is it really an advantage? Living in America, our child will miss living a wonderful cultural heritage, not that our American heritage is bad, but I guess the goal is to give them the best of both worlds.

 

One of the things I admire about ShuPing is her willingness to give up everything she knows, to become the wife of an American. She doesn't want to come to America, she'd rather I come to China, but she says she is a good LaoPo and will go with her LaoGong.

 

Sometimes I think she is naive and simply doesn't comprehend the change in culture, the inundation of everything American. I worry about her feeling alone when she comes here. I've done things to try to prepare her, like giving her a link to the Chinese Community in Colorado web page, but I still think it's going to be a difficult adjustment for her.

[LiuXia's Husband]

I worry about the adjustment, too. But she assures me it will be OK for her because it is customary for the Chinese wife to leave her family. Hope so.

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Leave the family, sure, but leave the country? That's where the adjustment has to take place.

 

Having been to China twice now, it strikes me how different their culture is from ours, but when you get right down to it, the Chinese are people just like Americans are. We all smile and laugh, cry, worry, sleep, eat, love, etc. To bad people can't focus on the similarities instead of the differences.

[eeyore]

Nice site. The e-cards are cool, sent one to the lao po.

 

Thomas.