So where do I begin?
Maybe I should start with what most of my friends, cousins and I are like.
I'm a Chinese American, the first born child of Chinese immigrants who lives in California but spent many summers in New York.
Now, most of my friends are also children of immigrants, with the few exceptions of them being born in China and some being second or third generation immigrants.
When it comes to Chinese families, usually more immigrants than those born here you NEED absolutely NEED to know how to speak either Cantonese or Mandarin depending, especially if you're the first born child like me. You don't necessarily need to be able to read it, just know how to speak it. If you know how to read it, that's a bonus for college.
If you speak Chinese and someone says something in English your parents don't understand you translate it to Chinese for them.
Second, third, fourth generation immigrants are pretty rare among my friends and I. Like, most of us children of immigrants. For the most part, our grandparents know nearly no English. Like when my friend and I heard our other friend's grandmother speak English with an American accent we gasped and whispered, "Her grandma speaks English!"
With that out of way, we also tend to Chinese wash every food related thing.
Steak? Oh sure eat it with soy sauce covered steamed lettuce and rice.
Pot luck? Okay we'll bring fried rice and chow fen.
Bacon? We'll put that in fried rice.
Cereal? Eat it with rice.
Okay maybe that's taking it too far. But I'm serious, once I ate rice and cereal at the same time.
For dinner, and sometimes lunch, we are given a bowl of plain rice, and then there's two or three plates of food set in front of you usually of meat or veggies, most of the time a bowl of soup and you serve yourself. We always eat at the table, rarely elsewhere.
Slurping is also very normal. But you are expected to help set the table and help your mother or father bring the dishes to the table.
We often go shop at the local Chinese supermarket rather than American markets, though it varies.
Also, especially if you're the children of immigrants, your close family is obnoxiously big.
I have ten aunts and thirteen uncles with my parents combined, and my oldest cousin is hitting her mid forties and has three kids.
My best friend has ten aunts and uncles on her mom's side and has more cousins than you can count on your fingers and toes twice over.
So you get the picture.
In Chinese families (well it could be Asian families in general), respect goes above everything, especially your family.
You want to be rude?
Go find your family.
And in Asian families, finding your family is worse than death.
In China, everything is said from the youngest child's point of view. I only bring this up because it is a system my family and other families still go by.
Example:
There's a family with a father named one, a mother named two, the oldest child is a girl named three, the middle child is a boy named four and the youngest is another boy named five.
The mother and the father will call the sister "older sister" (ga jie in Cantonese, as for Mandarin I don't know), the middle child "older brother" (gohgo in Cantonese I believe) and the youngest "younger brother" (sailou in Cantonese) or by the name, in this case "Five."
The children will call the mother "mama" or "ah ma" and father "baba" or "ah ba," and the parents will call each other "mama" or "baba" and usually not some nickname like "honey pie." Then again, it varies.
Cultural note: adding "ah" before a name shows familiarity with a person. However, this is not used across all of China, but only in certain areas, more commonly in the south.
When it comes to school, your parents normally expect you to get straight A's, depending, and are usually very strict about it.
Contrary to popular belief, many Chinese are not super skilled at math in my experience. Like ninety percent of my Chinese friends suck at math including me.
Usually, parents are pretty strict when it comes to dating. Mine don't want me to date until college, but still want me to get married and give them grandkids. (Ha-ha, yeah right)
As for Grandparents, to put it shortly one time my grandma stayed up until two thirty am in the morning to have jook (Chinese porridge, absolutely disgusting plain) ready for my mom when she came back from a trip to Canada
Well, that's it.
Remember, it varies upon family and how many generations they've been here.
Any questions, please let me know!