Life of an ABC

Well, I guess my mind has been in a reflective mode lately. One thing I was thinking about was how typical my life has been of someone born and raised in a Chinese family. I know most people who read this blog won't relate to what I'm gonna write about, but maybe at least some will be interested in hearing about what it's like to grow up as a Chinese kid in America.

And I don't know how much of this stuff applies to other Asians, but I know that almost every time I talk to a Chinese friend, something will come up in the conversation that he/she will definitely know about because they are "American-Born Chinese" (ABCs, and yes that is actually a commonly used term in our community). This is even more true for Taiwanese folk, who happen to be the most intelligent and physically attractive of the various Chinese groups.

The first thing that all Chinese parents do is try to teach their kids the Chinese language. They'll speak Chinese to their kids when they're little, probably send them to some sort of local-run Chinese school at some point, and maybe bring them to Taiwan in the summer to hang out with their FOB cousins (FOB = Fresh-off-boat, yes, another commonly used term) .

In some cases it works better than others. Most of the time, ABCs end up knowing enough Chinese to at least understand what their mom and dad are saying to them. Sometimes, they actually speak Taiwanese better than Mandarin because that's what their parents and grandparents speak more.

* side note FYI - The Taiwanese language is kind of like the "ebonics" of Chinese, the way I look at it. Usually, the more hardcore and ghetto Chinese people speak Taiwanese, like when you go to the street markets or tell a taxi driver where to go. For that matter, most of the major curse words I know of are in Taiwanese. Mandarin is more of the official language, which you hear on TV and in more professional places like department stores and corporate offices and stuff. *

ABC's also tend to screw around in Chinese school, so in the end, all they know how to write in Chinese is their own name, and maybe some basic characters like "Me (wo)", "You (ni)", "Friend (peng-yo)", "Teacher (lau-shir)", and "Good (hau)".

For me, my dad was a real nazi when it came to learning Chinese. I guess he saw that the ghetto Chinese school at my church wasn't gonna really cut it, so he'd collect Chinese newspaper clippings and make me study them. Then he'd print out like 16X12 grids on sheets of paper and make me write each character over and over until I learned it. But actually, that's how people learn to write Chinese, like in Taiwan, grade schoolers have to copy each word hundreds of times in order to remember it. One summer, my mom and dad sent me and my sister to a Chinese school in Taiwan called "guo-yu-re-bao" (it was actually run by a local news company), which was kind of like a month-long boot camp for ABC's to learn Chinese. Some Taiwanese people might know what I'm talking about.

Anyways, between all the stuff my Dad made me do, "guo-yu-re-bao", and living in Taiwan for a year, my Chinese is actually pretty good. It was really miserable at the time for me, when all my other friends were out rollerblading or at the swimming pool while I was at home for hours copying the same Chinese word over and over, but right now I can say that I'm definitely glad I did.

After the "learning Chinese" mission, the second most important goal a Chinese parent has for their kids is to make them learn a musical instrument. For about 95% of the ABC's I know, the musical instrument of choice is either piano or violin. In my case, it was piano, for my sister, it was violin. Again, it works better with some kids than others. I did ok, taking lessons for about 6 or 7 years before quitting. But compared to some other Chinese people I know, I flat out suck at piano.

My best friend as a kid was one of these guys whose mom and dad were obsessed with making him the best piano player ever. They shelled out mad dough to take lessons from the awesome teachers. They'd make him practice at least 2 hours a day (an eternity when you're a kid), and then send him to recitals and contests all the time. They didn't let him play basketball because they felt it was bad for his fingers. I'm not sure if he ever made it to the Young Performers thing they show on Channel 11 every year, but he was pretty damn good. Other Chinese people I know of who are really awesome at piano are Dennis (at least that's what I hear), and my super-smart cousin in Taiwan (but actually he's a FOB so he doesn't count).

It was kinda funny, now when I look back, and I remember how our parents would talk to each other about me and my best friend. My mom and dad would be like "wow, David is so good at the piano, he works so hard and wins all those trophies and ribbons, if only Joseph could be that good". Then his mom and dad would be like "wow, Joseph is so good at Chinese, he wins all those speech contests and stuff, if only David could be that good." And that's pretty much what Chinese parents do when they get together with other Chinese parents.

Which brings me to another part of being raised by Chinese parents. They are constantly comparing you to their friends' kids in every little thing possible. Not only in things like piano skill or Chinese ability, but they compare how well you do at school, how polite ("li-mao") you are to adults, and how tall you are. I can't emphasize how big of a factor height is, especially for boys. Every single time a group of parents happen to be in the same room with their sons, they make the sons stand next to each other to see who is taller. Every single time, with no exception, I swear. I personally suffered a lot because I was around 5'1"-5'2" until about sophomore year of high school.

You might think they would stop this comparison business by the time you are older, but trust me, it never stops. You get to high school, and you'll get plenty of news reports from mom and dad about who was a National Merit Scholar and who wasn't. You hear about so-and-so who got a 1600 on the SAT, was valedictorian last year, and went to Harvard. Oh, and it doesn't matter what the US News rankings say, every Chinese parent's ultimate dream is for their kid to go to Harvard. Princeton, Yale, Stanford are ok too, I guess, but Harvard is gold, without a doubt.

If you don't go to one of those schools for college, you have one of two options: Engineering or Pre-med. Seriously, a ridiculously high percentage of the ABC's I know went one of those two routes. For me, it was EE at U of I, following in the footsteps of about 5 or 6 of the older guys at my church. For Olivia, it was GPPA Pre-med at UIC, and she's currently in the same classes as my friend David who I mentioned before about the piano thing. Dennis and Cindy were ChemE at U of I. Other commonly acceptable roads are CS at U of I and the HPME Med program at Northwestern. If you choose one of these majors, it's guaranteed to make your Chinese mom and dad happy.

Sadly, very few Chinese parents are supportive of their sons/daughters who want to pursue the fine arts. It's kind of ironic actually, considering how much they push for their kids to learn piano or violin as a child. But if you tell your parents you want to be an art or music major, a lot of them will consider it a huge tragedy, like they wasted 18 years raising their child. I'm not kidding about that at all. Either Chinese culture simply doesn't value the artistic expression (which I don't think is the case), or they just want to know for sure that the son or daughter they worked so hard to raise is going to come out of school with a steady and well-paying job.

One thing I should also talk about is friends. My white readers can correct me if I'm wrong, or hopefully back me up on this, but when you're white, your best friend is usually your next-door neighbor or the kid that sits alphabetically next to you in kindergarten. This is not the case when you're Chinese. As everyone knows, Chinese families typically aren't very socially active in the neighborhood. Many Chinese parents also discourage you from hanging out with the white kids down the block, because they play too much and might corrupt you.

So, when you are born to Chinese parents, your best friends usually end up being the sons/daughters of their best friends. I talked about my best friend David, his dad went to grad school with my dad, and we happened to be born 10 days apart in the same hospital (Hinsdale). Though we went to different schools, him in Woodridge and me in Downers Grove, we were still best friends from, as he likes to say, "ages zero to six". Later on, his family moved 50 minutes away to (interestingly enough) Palatine, and eventually we drifted apart because of the distance. But even then, our families would get together for my birthday, his birthday, my sister's birthday, and his sister's birthday.

By the way, my sister and his sister were also best friends. And another thing to note about Chinese parents is that starting the exact moment their son or daughter is born, they keep a keen eye out to observe all their friends' children. Noting whose kid is about the same age and opposite sex of their own kid, and hoping that you hook up and get married with one of them when you get older.

Because the fact is, all Chinese parents want their sons or daughters to marry someone Chinese. Some are more vocal and strict about this, but I really believe that every last Chinese mom and Chinese dad feels this way. My mom and dad have never flat out forbid me to marry a white girl, but I'm pretty sure they'd be disappointed if I did. I guess it works out, cause I don't have the desire to date any white girls anyways.

I think this kind of thing is especially true for Chinese people, because I know that Chinese culture stresses being proud of your own heritage, maybe more so than any other culture. Even though China is no longer a world superpower, we still call ourselves the "Middle Kingdom". When I was in Chinese school, they would always brag about how the ancient Chinese had 4 major inventions that contributed to human civilization: paper, gunpowder, the printing press, and the compass. At the time I was like, "big deal", but I still can't help but feel a lot of pride to be Chinese today. And to be honest, I think that when I have a son or daughter of my own, in my heart I would rather have them marry someone Chinese too.

Another note about marrying Chinese, there's this thing in Taiwan for college-age ABC's that they call "Love Boat". Officially, it's a program for people like us to go there for a summer, tour the island of Taiwan, and learn stuff about Chinese culture like calligraphy (mao-bi-ze) or kung-fu. In reality, it's a big meet market where ABC's hook up. The application process for this thing more or less involves just sending a picture of yourself and a copy of your parent's tax information. To me, that basically means they'll let you go as long as you aren't butt ugly and/or poor.

Anyways, the program wasn't officially titled "Love Boat", but it was nicknamed that because after the first few years, a lot of girls were coming back pregnant. You'd think that parents would stop sending their kids to this thing, but that's not the case. I guess some of them are just that worried about their kid getting married to a whitey. My mom actually wanted me to go a few years ago, but I don't think she knows about the pregnancy stories and all that stuff. I didn't go cause it sounded dumb and I didn't want to be in Taiwan all summer, but I have plenty of friends who did. They would probably tell you pretty much all the same things I just wrote.

A blog entry about childhood as an ABC wouldn't be right without talking about video games. Every Chinese boy loves video games. That's probably why we all have glasses, too. Whenever me and my friends got together, that's what we did, was play Nintendo. From the early days of the original Mario Bros., all the way to college with Tekken 3 on Playstation and Starcraft on PC.

A funny thing about the old school 8-bit Nintendo, the truly hardcore Chinese kids (like me) had "Chinese Nintendo" (which was actually Japan's Famicom). Only certain Chinese people will know what I'm talking about here. Instead of the American version, which is gray and loads games sideways, Chinese Nintendo is white with red trim and loads from the top. And unlike American Ninendo, its controllers were permanently connected to the machine, and only player 1 had the select/start buttons. But, some versions had a microphone built in to controller 2 which let you talk through the TV speakers. Ah, that was hours of fun.

Other than that, most of the games were the same for Chinese and American Nintendo, like Mario, ExciteBike, Pro Wrestling, and Hockey. Except they weren't interchangeable between systems, and sometimes the games were in Japanese so you had to guess what they were saying. The cool thing about Chinese Nintendo was that you could go to Taiwan and get these bigger cartridges from street vendors that had like 31 games on one cartridge. Most of them were crappy games, but the concept was cool.

Anyways, I could write way more on this subject, like stuff about using the fat guys and skinny guys in Hockey, or "A Winner Is You" in Pro Wrestling, but I think I've already lost all but one or two readers by now. Maybe one of these days I'll devote a blog to old school video games. Or if anyone else wants to write one, I'll definitely comment on it.

Well, that was a pretty freaking long blog. Hopefully it was informative and/or thought provoking though. It's not the complete story either, I tried to limit it to just the major stuff. I could seriously write a whole lot more but I decided just to talk about the major stuff. I didn't even mention anything about mah-johng, Chinese New Year, hot pot, Chinatown, or visiting relatives.

But yeah, I hope at least maybe one person out there got something from reading all that besides me. Any questions please feel free to ask.... hahaha