A traditional Chinese Thanksgiving...
I've always wished I had a normal American family, but I guess being 2nd generation Chinese really doesn't allow me to be that way. Most American holidays make that glaringly clear. My parents and I barely celebrate Christmas. They've long since stopped hiding my presents, or even buying me presents. They don't even give me money to buy presents anymore. All we do is go out to dinner, which we do 2 or 3 nights out of the week anyway. We've never done Easter, although I've had the pleasure of celebrating it with friend's families during the college years and it's always so great. Mostly it's because they're such typical American families and they're always so warm and receptive to me that I'm so jealous that I don't have that.
Thanksgiving is the only holiday that we celebrate well. It's not traditional, with the turkey, and the mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, etc. We usually do have turkey, and we'll have a big carved ham. We do a lot of asian-y dishes, which makes it a very uniquely Chinese Thanksgiving, which is nice. And most importantly, my parents and I get together with my aunt and uncle and my cousins and their husbands and it's like one big happy family, and even though it's boring because everyone's at least 15 years older than me and talk about politics and whatever, it's nice to be surrounded by people and pretend I have a great big family, which is what I always wanted and very rarely had the experience, being an only child and all.
It was ok this year. Since my cousin married a Canadian man, it's been a little awkward when he and his family members are there. My aunt and uncle don't speak English very well, and neither do many of my cousins, so I always feel really weird when everyone's speaking Chinese to each other and these three or four people are sitting there with bewildered looks on their faces. I wonder what it's like to be on that other end.
It always makes me think that I should marry a Chinese man, just so our families will be able to meld well, and family holidays won't be so awkward and stilted. And it also makes me want to have a lot of kids, at least 3, so that I'll never feel like there's no one around. I want my kids to have siblings, like a built-in support system.
But I'm not even close to that yet. As close as I am to being an adult, I'm still very far away from that life.
Thanksgiving is the only holiday that we celebrate well. It's not traditional, with the turkey, and the mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, etc. We usually do have turkey, and we'll have a big carved ham. We do a lot of asian-y dishes, which makes it a very uniquely Chinese Thanksgiving, which is nice. And most importantly, my parents and I get together with my aunt and uncle and my cousins and their husbands and it's like one big happy family, and even though it's boring because everyone's at least 15 years older than me and talk about politics and whatever, it's nice to be surrounded by people and pretend I have a great big family, which is what I always wanted and very rarely had the experience, being an only child and all.
It was ok this year. Since my cousin married a Canadian man, it's been a little awkward when he and his family members are there. My aunt and uncle don't speak English very well, and neither do many of my cousins, so I always feel really weird when everyone's speaking Chinese to each other and these three or four people are sitting there with bewildered looks on their faces. I wonder what it's like to be on that other end.
It always makes me think that I should marry a Chinese man, just so our families will be able to meld well, and family holidays won't be so awkward and stilted. And it also makes me want to have a lot of kids, at least 3, so that I'll never feel like there's no one around. I want my kids to have siblings, like a built-in support system.
But I'm not even close to that yet. As close as I am to being an adult, I'm still very far away from that life.
Labels: American, family, Thanksgiving
posted by Lily @ 10:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home