Zeneta

Cross Cultural Experiences

askmrwood:

If you’d like to submit a cross cultural experience, please reblog this post just like you were going to reblog a journal post. DON’T MIX THESE UP! This is for CROSS CULTURAL EXPERIENCES ONLY!

I interviewed Kristy, who I have met this year in school, and as we interviewed each other during this experience, we found out that we are alike in some ways and different too. We met up with each other’s moms and ourselves at a restaurant and as we discussed with each other with what we do in our everyday lives, we laughed at some of the similarities. One big similarity was that she and I both love K-pop (Korean pop), and so by doing so, Kristy was already aware with some of Korean lifestyle, but she didn’t know everything. Another similarity is that we were both born in the U.S.; L.A. to be exact. So we were raised in an environment that consists of much different diversity, such as the color of people, what they do, and much more. I asked Kristy and her mom questions such as “What language do you speak at home?” to “What do you do on holidays and what are your traditions?” and those two answers came out to be very different from my answers to her answers.
                 Kristy’s mom was born in Hong Kong and later moved to Taiwan for schooling, and her dad was born in Vietnam, and he was rich, but because of the Vietnam War, he became a refugee and also moved to Taiwan. And later, they moved together to the U.S. in the 1990s. And her brother, Willis was also born in the U.S. like Kristy, and right now she lives with both her parents.  Kristy is not pure Cantonese but is a percentage of Vietnamese as well. The odd thing about this is that she doesn’t know how to fluently speak her own language; she can understand, but not speak a lot. So she mostly speaks in English, but sometimes English and canto mixed to her parents, but her parents speak Cantonese to her. Whereas I speak Korean to both my parents, mostly to my mom, but English to my two brothers.
                Kristy and her brother have a closer relationship than she does with both her parents. They seem like best friends whenever we meet up at the most randomness times, whether it’s at school or an event.  While we were eating, I asked her and her mom what they eat on a daily basis, they said rice, and that’s what every Asian household typically eats, because as far as I know, I haven’t gone 3 days without eating some type of rice. For religion, Kristy’s family is Atheist, and my family is Christian. Kristy’s family just slowly became an Atheist, and as for my family, my parents have always wanted me to follow God, and believe that he is there for me, and know that he is good all the time from the day I was born.
               As for tradition, Kristy’s family goes to Hong Kong and Taiwan during Winter Break every year, and I have never gone out of North and South America, because ¾ of my relatives are here in the U.S. or in South America. For me, I go to Paraguay in South America and visit my grandpa’s grave every now and then around Christmas and New Year’s, and our family ends up going to the East Coast once in a while too. Adding onto that, for annual celebrations, such as Chinese New Year’s, she receives red envelopes with money enclosed, and gets together with her relatives and eats dinner together, and that is just like me on Lunar New Year’s, except we don’t get red envelopes, we just get an envelope with money enclosed, and we wear traditional dresses, or hanboks and bow to our elders, and wish them a great New Year’s and they tell us to do good in school, and to respect our parents, and for dinner, we eat rice cake soup. Kristy also celebrates the Moon cake Festival, also called the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is held in September or October every year. I asked them if they eat moon cakes during this festival, and they said that their family does. Koreans also have celebrations that maybe the Chinese do not take much seriously, such as children’s day, and on that day I remember how my parents would always buy me and my brothers toys, gifts, and even money!
       One last question that I asked her mom which will also be the last one that will be included in this experience write-up, would be, “What do you value in your life?” She responded by saying, “Family.” And I 100% understand that, and get why she said that. My mom’s answer was also like Kristy’s mom, which I didn’t find weird because I suspected that all Asian families value their families and children. My mom also told me that she prized, valued, and wanted her children to become people that they want to be, and to never let go of God.
      Through all this experience, there were a lot of similarities we discussed about that were not mentioned above. We basically do the same things every day and have the same routine during the weekdays. Even though Kristy is Chinese, and I’m Korean, there are so many similarities in us. Just like the one stated above, where we eat rice every day, for almost every meal as well. It was fun learning about what she does on her own cultures holidays and comparing it to mine. It made me and my mom think that we should always embrace our own tradition and culture and never compare it with others, because we are each unique in our own ways.