Graduation Party

I believe many of you received graduation party invitation(s) like we did last month. Over here in the States, people celebrate high school graduation. Think it back, none of us had any celebration like this.

Actually, in the Asian culture, study well and get good academic results are children responsibilities. Parents don't celebrate it. Going further back, in the Chinese history, there was only one occasion that people celebrated.

If someone passed the exam which allowed that person to get a position in the government, his family and friend celebrated. It is because that person's life was pretty much set. For people from the wealthier families, they definitely celebrated. That was a great opportunity to build more relationships with famous and richer people. Nowadays, a university graduate can't even have a job guarantee.

So, do you think that Chinese expect too much from their children? Or our kids expect a lot from us?

Garage Sale

I was never big on buying or using 2nd hand stuffs. I think there are 2 reasons:

1) My parents had never bought anything 2nd hand, including cars.
2) There is never a garage sale in Hong Kong.

What did I just say? Yes....there is no or never a garage sales in Hong Kong. So, what do people do with the stuffs that they don't want?

Here are the 3 common ways to get rid of your "junks":
1) If you happen to know some friends or relatives not to mind 2nd hand stuffs, you can give to them.

2) Donate to the charitable organizations.
Some of them have scheduled collections throughout the years in each district. You can drop your "junks" at their collecting centers any time. A small portion of them will be on sale for collecting more fund for the organization. Most of them will be sent to the third world countries.

3) Last thing you would want to do is to throw them away.

Unfortunately, this mindset is heavily rooted in the Asian countries. Some people do make a lot of money in the garage sale, but not in Hong Kong or other Asian countries.

Hong Kong's Fund-Raising in the Street

This is the lable I got, during this past trip back to Hong Kong, after approached by a student and the money donation.

During the weekends in Hong Kong, you may be approached by a or a few students in school uniform with a small stack of labels and a bag for collecting money. They are doing the fund-raising.

This kind of activity started since when my parents were in high schools. The charitable organizations would submit their request of fund-raising to the government. Once it is approved, these organizations would request the volunteers from the high schools. Each volunteer would receive a small stack of labels which is about a couple hundreds of them and a bag for collecting money.

Each student or volunteer will approach each passer-by and ask him/her if he/she would be interested in buying a label. You can donate whatever you want to get a sticker. Once the money is put into that bag, there is no way for that volunteer to take it out. So, it is very secured. This weekends fund-raising activity always ends by noon.

Sometimes, you may see the elderly as volunteers.

If you travel in Hong Kong one day and approached by a person as described above, please extend your helping hands.

Chinese Bridal/Baby Showers?

My friend's, Valerie, son is going to marry an Asian girl soon. Her future daughter-in-law, Maggie, is partly Japanese and partly Chinese. And Valerie wants to host an Asian-themed bridal shower to give Maggie a surprise.

So, Val called me and asked for the opinions and advice. One thing she mentioned to me that, being an American, she had never been to any Asian shower so she really doesn't know where to start.

My mission is not only give the advice to Val, but also give her some cultural and historical background to understand the Asian cultures.

First of all, I told her that there is NO shower in most Asian countries, especially in China. All the expenses are paid by the newly wed or parents-to-be. Unlike here in America, everybody gets together and buy everything for the newly wed and/or the baby. But that is not the way in China. Some friends or relatives may buy some gifts. But no one is obligated to buy something or give money in the showers like here.

I even told Val that when I first heard my husband, my boyfriend back at the time, tell me about the baby shower, my first response was thinking people getting together to see the first shower the baby has. It sounds funny...hehehe....But for an American, you may know from this example about the Asian reaction.

Another advice I told Valerie that she has to make sure that where her future daughter-in-law exactly came from. 'Cos we sometimes mix up China, Japan or other Asian countries easily. But their cultures are very different even though a lot of them originated from China. You don't want to mix in something and do it wrong to cause any bad feeling. If she can't find out or be sure, she may want to skip the Asian theme part to avoid the mistakes.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun talking with Val and help out my friend to understand more about her future daughter-in-law. :-)

How do Chinese call their relatives?

In the western world, grandchildren call their grandparents from both their parents' sides as "grandma" and "grandpa" and call their parents siblings as "uncle" and "aunt".



In the Chinese world, little ones call everybody differently. Even if a stranger walks by your kid and hears how he/she calls his/her grandma, this person can figure out right away from which side of the family his/her grandma from. The same rule applies to when the kid calls their uncles and aunts.



Let me give you some examples how we call our grandparents:

Grandfather from my father's side - "Ye ye"

Grandmother from my father's side - "Ma ma" (It sounds like calling your mother. But the tune is very low. It's very different.)


Grandfather from my mother's side - "Gung gung"

Grandmother from my mother's side - "Pau pau"

In the western world, when your kid calls his/her uncle, he/she may call him as "Uncle Joe" in which that person's first name is included. In the Chinese culture, nobody is allowed to do so. This is seen as disrespect, even among siblings. But in this new generation, certain families are not as strict as it used to be.

Education

There is a new colleague at work who came from China. I am very impressed that he was graduated from Tsinghua University, the no. 1 university in China, and a very down-to-earth person.

It reminds me a girl that I worked with more than 10 years ago. She also came from China and a university graduate. She told me that every Chinese carries a booklet in which it records where this individual graduated, where they worked, where they live and so forth. This record is pretty much open to the public and specially important to the educated class. Any bad record in this booklet will affect them in the rest of their lives seriously.

When it came to university graduates in China, they are the best of the best. Unlike any college students or university graduates in other countries, these elites 100% know what they are doing. I personally had this experience.

One of our piano teachers, Mrs Cheng Mei Ling, came from China. She stopped teaching because she had serious back problem. I remembered the time not long before she stopped teaching us that she couldn't sit down even a minute because her back hurt so much. I still love her and miss her after all these years. In those 3 years that she taught us, she memorized every piano piece and played the song in front of us just by closing her eyes. None of our other piano teachers could do this. I don't mean to be disrespectful. But she was exceptional and extraordinary.

Think about this. If every person in any country can take the education as seriously as these people, this world would be a better place to live.

Casino & Gambling

After the Beijing Olympic, are you still curious about the culture and customs of China? Maybe not. In this long weekend, some of my co-workers are going to the casino to gamble. It inspired me to share this with you.

Casino and gambling sound like only in the western world. But it has been in China for centuries. Differences are the games, casino setting and/or locations.

Games are "Mahjong", "Due Chong" (the numbers you will get by shaking 2 dices in a cup), "Fish, Shrimp and Crab" and "Pai Guo". They are all Chinese originated games.

Setting and locations have played a very important part throughout the history, especially to the casino owners. Most of them believe in "Fung Shui" which will affect them of how many people coming into their casinos and losing money.

Of course, gamblers have their own strategies to be anti-casino's "Fung Shui".

One of the best examples is the first casino in Macau. The setup of the main entrance makes it like a big mouth which will attract people's money. But gamblers believe that going into the casino from the back door and leave at the main entrance will take care of it.

I am not big in gambline. But I think that that would be something interesting to share with you. Have a wonderful long weekend.

Adoption

In America, we see a lot of Chinese or Asian children adopted by American couples. It looks like very common here.

But if we traced back to the history before the communist one-child-one-family policy, it was very common in China, too.

Actually, adopting boys was the most common practice. And my brother-in-law's father was an adopted child.

For rich people, they usually adopt one child within the family in order to keep the blood line.

For the poor people, they sometimes adopt within the family like the rich. Sometimes, they adopt from somewhere, such as friends, children trafficking and so forth.

You may think that all the adopted children will have the father's last name. Not really......Some women from the privileged families would like to keep their families' names, especially if there were no boys in the youngest generation. Then, these adopted children will bear the last names of the mothers.

In conclusion, it is all about the succession of the families.