The living conditions of native Chinese Americans

Question: Many Chinese immigrants from the earlier generation have become American citizens, and their descendants have naturally become Chinese. So what is their life like?

Let’s start with this. Watch some interesting stuff Chinese American Humor / What Kind of Asian Are You? I’m not sure what answer the questioner wants, so I’ll talk about my life and my friends.

About identity

If someone asks, I will answer that I am Asian American. If you continue to ask, I will answer that I am Chinese.

Very few people would answer “Chinese-American”. Not many people say that, so I think the word sounds weird.

Very few people would answer "American-born Chinese". People born and raised in China often use this word to describe me.

My friends and I believe that we are Asian Americans mainly because of our education. Starting in kindergarten, schools have different racial classifications: White American, African American, Hispanic American, Asian American and Native American. Moreover, all documents involving race require "whether you are Asian" rather than "whether you are Chinese". This is also how most Asian American community organizations are named, such as the National Asian Professional Association. Organizations that specifically include Chinese in their names are usually for those who grew up in China.

Like many of my friends who have been to China, I am in China. I call this feeling of jet lag in the soul, being in Cao Ying and in Han heart. In the United States, when Chinese people of the same age around me chat and fight in Chinese, I always feel lost and out of tune with their world. And when I actually returned to China, I was sometimes troubled by the cultural differences.

In short, being a Chinese American is difficult or easy. If you are sharp enough, you can switch freely between the two identities of Chinese and American, but it is also very likely that you are... confused between these two identities.

About Education

Public Schools

As you might expect, most of what I learned was about the United States. I will sing the American national anthem instead of the Chinese one. I know American and European history but not Chinese. I've always been "awesome" in math because I learned multiplication before being taught multiplication in fourth grade, and I've been a top math student ever since.

When I was in elementary school, my homework almost always included some stories, such as

Suzy went to the bank to deposit her coins. She had 15 coins a day, which added up to $2.25. How many different combinations can her coins have?

In addition, we also have some research topics, such as

Write about your favorite historical figure and describe him/her contribution.

or

Survey people you know and chart their birthdays.

or

Design a scientific experiment. What are the results of the experiment? What is the scientific reason?

Occasionally, there are some assignments to test memorization, but generally no more than five questions a day. All in all, homework takes about half an hour a day.

Junior high school homework is also in this format, but the topics will be more complex and require more group cooperation. It takes about one hour a day to write homework.

When I was in high school, I went to a magnet school (Note 1), so my experience was a little different from ordinary students. My classmates in ordinary high schools had 1-2 hours of homework a day, but I had 2-3 hours of homework plus 2 hours of reading. Classes are discussion based and we need to look up materials on the discussion topics at home.

For example

Discuss Shakespeare's comments on the British economy in "Hamlet"

Discuss the connotation of Hemingway's description of the weather in "A Farewell to Arms"

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Discussing the impact of industrialization on German reunification

We questioned each other in class and learned how to analyze problems. This was all very taxing as the teacher wanted not a right answer but the best answer our research and reasoning could give. Not only is it more difficult than rote learning, it's also more comprehensive.

Outside of class, I also

Participated in drama performances

Participated in the school boys' volleyball team

My school's literary magazine

Leading the local robotics team

I know this sounds like a typical Chinese-American overachiever story, but I do these because they are fun. I could have gone home directly after school, done homework for two or three hours, and played games to finish the day. My parents also wanted me to stop my extracurricular activities and take more rest. But I feel like what I learned from my extracurricular activities will take me further than what I learned in the classroom.

About Chinese

Nearly all of my Asian-American friends attended Chinese schools. Chinese schools are different from ordinary schools in that they are usually organized by the local community and have classes for a few hours on Saturdays or Sundays.

Although the pronunciation is not very standard (the sounds shi/si, chang/cang are not clear), most of my friends speak basic Chinese. These are enough for them to communicate with their grandparents at home (simple expressions such as "Put this over there", "I have eaten it"). Some of my better friends can speak Cantonese or Shanghainese at home, but they are still not very good at Mandarin. Often, their parents speak Chinese to them, they respond in English, and their parents sometimes continue the conversation in English. Some friends try to speak Chinese more often at home, and I have two friends who can read Chinese books.

When I was five years old, my parents sent me back to China to stay with my grandparents for a year. At that time, I learned Pinyin and some basic words (as well as mathematics that reached the American fifth grade level). That year was of great significance to my Chinese learning. Later, when I was in junior high school, my parents enrolled me in a Chinese school. Being able to read Pinyin really sets me apart because I can

Use a Chinese dictionary

Read simple articles with Pinyin

Read vocabulary correctly

My excellent performance in Chinese schools motivates me to continue learning Chinese. In high school, I studied Chinese as my second foreign language. I started speaking Chinese at home and was happy to ask my parents about words I didn't know. When I was in college, I went to China for a year as an exchange student. (There are so many differences between Chinese and American universities that I won’t go into details here. I’ll answer them when I have related questions.)

About the economy

My family was very poor when I was a child. At that time, my father was still studying for his Ph.D. and my mother had not obtained a work visa. All our furniture and my toys were donated by others or bought at low prices at yard sales (Note 2). In school, I was able to enjoy free meals because my family’s income was close to the poverty line.

In those years, because my father pursued a better job, we moved 16 times, one of which even crossed half of the United States. Now, we are in the upper-middle class of society: my parents and I both have good salaries, we bought a house with mortgage payment, and we can buy most of the daily necessities we want but not the luxuries in the magazines.

In short, this is steady and slow economic growth rather than the rapid pace of China’s economy.

When my family was at its poorest 20 years ago, our quality of life was much better than that of our friends in China. For example, we have a Toyota Corolla and can shop at Wal-Mart (at the same time, every Chinese who walked into Wal-Mart for the first time was shocked).

Now, we are no longer as wealthy as those friends.

For example, my parents’ friends all send their children to study abroad (many in the United States). As international students, they need to pay extremely high tuition fees and spend a lot of money on travel and shopping. Instead, I chose to study at a state university because of the lower tuition fees for in-state students and the opportunity for scholarships. In addition, I worked for 3 years in my spare time.

Most of my friends’ families are middle- and upper-class. Our parents were doctors, engineers, accountants, researchers, professors; they also introduced their children to similar careers. But we are still young and careers can change quickly. A friend of mine quit a good financial consulting job to pursue improv comedy.

Some of us feel that our parents have gone through a lot of hardships to give us the opportunity to receive such a good education. If just doing an enviable job and getting an enviable salary is simply a waste of their sacrifices, we should strive to enter a higher social class in the United States to be worthy of them.

About Social

If you look through my Facebook friends, you will see that about half of them are Asian Americans.

When I was growing up, almost all of my friends were not Chinese-American, but this was not my choice because there were very few Chinese-American students in my school. Most of my friends are Jewish, and the rest are African-American and other Asian Americans.

When I was in high school, there were many Chinese-American students in my Advanced Placement (Note 3) and International Foundation Certificate (Note 4) classes. Even though they didn't hang out with my non-Asian friends, for the first time I had a group of Chinese friends. Both sets of friends grew up in America, watching the same shows and listening to the same music. Although to an outsider they might look very different, I didn't feel that way.

About family

Parents

I have never talked with my parents about their cultural identity, so I can only speculate. But I can tell you what condition they are in.

My parents are now American citizens. In fact, they even changed their names to American ones. But they speak Chinese at home, watch Chinese programs (my mother loves "If You Are the One" and "The Voice of China") and cook Chinese food (my father still can't make a decent sandwich).

Their friends are all Chinese. My parents were delighted when three other Chinese families lived on the same street as us a few years ago. In the summer they went out for walks and chats every night. At the Olympics, they cheer for the Chinese team in every event (I usually root for China and the United States). They also complain about America's strident political stance toward China.

On the other hand, they have adapted very well to the United States. Most of their colleagues are not Chinese but get along well with them. My dad voted in the last two presidential elections and was proud of it (my mom was too lazy to wait in line to vote).

I don’t think they will move back to China. Twenty years have passed and my hometown has become a memory. Every time they return home, their parents always seem very helpless and must rely on relatives for help. They no longer recognize the streets and bus routes of their hometown or its subway system, and sometimes they don’t even know the names of the most common supplies and activities.

They tried to integrate into the local environment like ordinary Chinese residents, but soon gave up. For example, when they get into a taxi, they will consciously fasten their seat belts. And they are not used to living without some of the conveniences they take for granted in the United States, such as unlimited hot water, central air conditioning, public wireless Internet, clean public bathrooms, etc.

They missed China very much, where it meant being reunited with family and friends, but they soon felt relieved and drove back to our home. So I think they are in a dilemma. They are always proud to be Chinese but at the same time they are happy to be American.

Relationships

I have a very close relationship with my parents, as well as my grandparents. My grandparents also raised me, so they were like second parents to me.

My parents set a good example for me in how they treated their grandparents, and I strive to be a dutiful grandson. Even though I now live in an apartment close to work, I still spend weekends with my parents, which is rare among Americans.

I am also very close to my cousins ??in the United States. But that’s because we’re all Americans.

I am more estranged from my cousins ??in China than I expected. My year in China as a child helped me connect with them and treat them as close family members. But in reality, we rarely talk.

The language barrier is certainly huge. It is difficult for me to speak interesting facts in Chinese and few of my cousins ??understand English. What's more, there's a 12-hour time difference that makes making phone calls a problem. Email? Well... let me try to learn Chinese first.

I want to know more about their dynamics. Some technological products, like WeChat, help bridge the gaps between us.

That’s it, a brief but possibly biased story about a Chinese American in his 20s.

This is a really hard question because I have to describe something that is normal to me but may be highly unusual to everyone else. And, I can only talk about me and my friends. We are second generation Chinese Americans. But our experience will be very different from the fifth, sixth, and Nth generation Chinese Americans. Also, these are just my experiences. If you find that Chinese Americans are not like me, please believe what you see. After all, people are different in the world.

Some notes

Note 1. Magnet school (this term began in the United States in 1965, is a public school with special curriculum design and teaching methods to attract Students from various backgrounds, hoping to contribute to the integration of various races);

Note 2. Yard sale (also known as garage sale, porch sale or moving sale, is a unique type of sale in the United States) The owner sells the unwanted items in the yard, garage or porch at a low price);

Note 3. AP (Advanced Placement) refers to the College courses taught in high schools offered by The College Board. American high school students can take these courses and take AP exams after completing their coursework. After obtaining certain scores, they can obtain college credits.

Note 4. The International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IB Course) is a two-year course designed by the International Baccalaureate Organization for high school students.