0 Chinese Parent Child Relationships example essay topic

Chinese culture has always fascinated me in that its values and traditions are different from that of American culture. A few weeks ago, while eating with my friend, Wenjing, who recently came from Shanghai, I started wondering! ^0 what is the biggest difference between the two cultures?! +/- and so I asked her. At first she gave me a glare of confusion. Then she sat for a minute or two in silence and finally responded, ! ^0 Probably family relationships.!

+/- On this occasion and the other many lunches we would share together, she explained to me the differences that exist between the two cultures in family dynamics, roles and values. Throughout our numerous conversations, Wenjing kept mentioning that in Chinese culture, the family is an economic unit. She said, ! ^0 We share our money and have one bank account. My parents always say! (R) my money is your money!!

-They trust me and as long as it!'s for a good purpose, my parents just give me money. American parents don! t do that; they give their kids fixed allowance or loan their kids money.! +/- Indeed, sharing a common household budget is part of Chinese culture. The possessions, income, and expenses of all family members are pooled, and decisions about resource distribution are the legitimate business of all family members. It has been convincingly argued that the common budget is one of the most important defining characteristics of Chinese families.

One effect of this custom is to define who is in or out of a family by means other than kinship. Kinship makes one a potential member of a family. But close kinsmen can be in different families if the family has decided to stop sharing a budget. Wenjing later continued, ! ^0 When we (family members) go out to dinner or anywhere everyone will be arguing and yelling!

(R) Let me pay! -It!'s a sign of respect and care.! +/- Paying for one another builds a relationship based on reciprocity. In China, it is possible for the same family budget to be shared by a family that crosses several households.

One can imagine a family with some members living in a farming village and others living over their shop in a small town, for example. In modern times, Chinese families have been studied that have had members living in several different countries, but all sharing a common budget. Within the family unit, the Chinese parent-child relationship contrasts significantly to that of the American relationship. Wenjing claims that! ^0 because parents can only have one child in China, they appreciate that one very much. Siblings are also grateful for their brothers and sisters because it is much rarer to have them.!

+/- She says that! ^0 Chinese parent-child relationships are much stronger because we talk more to our parents, especially about school and grades. If the parents are fairly liberal, we talk about relationships and emotions. In America, children are diagnosed with psychological problems and talk to a psychologist. In china we talk to our parents.! +/- Amy Tan, a contemporary Chinese-American author brings up this issue in The Joy Luck Club as well.

In Rose Hsu Jordan's story "Without Wood", Rose and her mother An-mei sit in church and speak about Rose's visits to the psychiatrist. Her mother states, "A mother is best. A mother knows what is inside you", she said! -.

"A psyche-a tricks will only make you hulihudu, make you see heimongmong". Back home, I thought about what she said! -. [These] were words I had never thought about in English terms. I suppose the closest in meaning would be "confused" and "dark fog". But really, the words mean much more than that.

Maybe they can't be easily translated because they refer to a sensation that only Chinese people have.! -! +/- Challenging her daughter's adherence to what she feels is an odd Western convention, An-mei asks Rose why she feels she must tell a psychiatrist! aa complete stranger! about her marital woes, when she refuses to confide in her mother about them. Wenjing later went on to explain that the Chinese greatly value family bonding, and that! ^0 being eighteen years old doesn! t mean anything. Parents take care of you until you! ve graduated college and some parents take care of their kids until they are married.!

+/- She rationalized her culture!'s great value of education by saying that! ^0 because parents in China can only have one child, they put a lot of pressure on the child to go to college, graduate, get a good job and marry. They only have one shot to succeed! +/- and due to the Chinese Cultural revolution! ^0 my parents! generation didn! t get to go to college so they have instilled their dreams into their kids.! +/- While Chinese students work hard to please their parents, so do Chinese parents sacrifice to help their children, especially for education. In The Joy Luck Club, Su yuan (mother) take an extra job cleaning the house of a family with a piano, in order to earn Jing-mei the opportunity to practice the instrument.

These acts of sacrifice speak to the power of the parent-child bond. Before a parent-child relationship can even exist, a marriage must first be built. As China is becoming more westernized, arranged marriages are becoming less common. Wenjing told me, ! ^0 Today, couples usually meet one another at school or gatherings without their parents guide.! +/- However, traditional Chinese marriage was not the free union of two young adults to establish a new household.

It was the movement of a woman from her natal family to her married family and her assimilation into the new family as an economically productive member of the family corporation and the mother of her husband's children. In The Joy Luck Club, the narrator talks about the invisible strength she gives her daughter, Lindo, to endure the hardships that a restrictive and patriarchal society forces upon her. Lindo stares into the mirror as she prepares for her arranged marriage to a man she does not love, knowing that to flee the marriage would be to go back on her parents' promise to her husband's family. Lindo's lesson in balancing duty to one's parents and duty to oneself also links her to her own daughter who must learn to revere their heritage and their elders without becoming passive, without giving up their own desires and aspirations. As Wenjing put it, the new wife was looked upon as an! ^0 employee.!

+/- She depended upon her parents or other favorably inclined people to find her the best "job" possible, and the family "hiring" her was worried to be sure to get the best "worker" available. As with all things else, the final decision lay with the hierarchically senior decision maker in each family, although as a practical matter the most important voice in making the decision was that of the parents of the potential groom or bride. These efforts are made to avoid divorce. As China becomes more westernized, divorce is becoming slightly more common. However, traditional views shun divorce.

In The Joy Luck Club, Lindo agonized over how to extricate herself from a miserable marriage without dishonoring her parents' promise to her husband's family. While her concern for her parents shows that Lindo did not wish to openly rebel against her tradition, Lindo made a secret promise to herself to remain true to her own desires. This promise shows the value she places on autonomy and personal happiness! two qualities that Lindo associates with American, rather than Chinese, culture. On one of our later meetings Wenjing brought up the fact that! ^0 My parents met through a matchmaker who was a friend of my father!'s mother. My dad was getting close to thirty and my grandmother was getting worried so she talked to the matchmaker.!

+/- Although friends and relations were constantly alert for possible mates for young boys and girls, sometimes professional help was indeed required and professional matchmakers (m"|ir"|n ~A 1/2 'E"E) were a constant feature of the Chinese social scene. Once married, Chinese and American wives and husbands share very similar responsibilities. Although modern parents are trying to split the duties of house and home, Wenjing still explains, ! ^0 Women who have children still either stay at home for a few years and then go back to work, handing the children over to the grandparents or the mother just stays at home and raises the child.! +/- The female struggle in a patriarchal society is still a problem common to both Chinese and American cultures. In China, for example, Lindo is forced to live almost as a servant to her mother-in-law and husband, conforming to idealized roles of feminine submission and duty.

The women in Amy Tan!'s The Kitchen God's Wife demonstrate the submissive roles of Chinese wives. Strong women are punished and shunned just as Winnie's mother, a "modern Shanghai woman", had been shunned for her opinions and self- determination. One of the only pieces of advice her father ever gives Winnie is that her husband, his opinions and desires, must come before her own. Winnie struggles throughout her youth with the ideals she has been taught of how to be a "good wife" because these "ideals" have only brought her suffering. There exist the rigid notions of purity and virtue held by the patriarchal Chinese society. Both the Chinese and Americans hold sexist standards for women and instill passivity.

Submission to sexist modes of thought and behavior creates a passive destruction of a wife!'s autonomy. Through Wenjing!'s personal experiences, Amy Tan!'s novels and many other sources we have learnt how marriage, the roles of the parents, the relationship between the parent and child and the common household budget are the many factors that make up a Chinese family.