Advice to help relate to your Chinese family. Stories about Chinese family, and the experience of being a foreigner in a Chinese family, from one Western woman with a Chinese husband.
I’m 27 and I was born and raised in Europe but my fiancee is Shanghainese so we’re gonna have one of those Chinese super expensive weddings in a 5 stars hotel in Shanghai and I really dont know what to do. I really do not like the Chinese wedding style made up of performances, games and speech. Besides relatives, I invited around 20-30 friends to the wedding here and I’m gettin more and more nervous about what is going to happen during the feast. We have an MC that will entertain the guests and lead the night but both with him and the wedding planner I had a really hard time to plan everything and trying to make as nice and simple as possible but unfortunately there are some things such as exchange of vows and rings on the stage in front of everybody and organize some games for the guests, apparently Chinese people really appreciate and enjoy them. You went through this already so can you or anyone else who went through this and can give me some advises?Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Big Fat Chinese Weddings Revisited”
Red envelope, hongbao, lai see -- whatever you call them, remember, at Chinese New Year, these are more for kids, not your boyfriend or girlfriend.
D asks:
I’m dating a cute Cantonese boy, although he was born in Canada himself (along with his brother), his parents are from China. His parents are pretty strict about him dating period, never mind dating a white girl like myself.
Chinese New Year is coming up, and I know it’s a time where the older give to the younger. As I’m older than my boyfriend by a few years, would it be odd if I had gotten him one of the special lai see envelopes with money in it? Or is that just strictly family related?Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: Chinese New Year Red Envelopes For Boyfriend?”
Accomplished Chinese food writer and yangxifu Carolyn J. Phillips talks with me about food and what it takes to charm your Chinese family at the table. (photo from zesterdaily.com)
Food is such an integral part of Chinese culture that it’s really hard to fit into a Chinese family if one isn’t adept at the cuisine. I suppose this is true to some extent with any country, but the Chinese are probably on par with the French and Italians when it comes to the importance of dining well.
This is probably doubly important when a yangxifu doesn’t speak Chinese fluently but still hopes to be accepted. Have your readers talked much about this? I truly feel that the old saw about the way to a man’s stomach etc is gospel for us yangxifu.
Carolyn should know — she’s a yangxifu who devoted her adult life to mastering the art of Chinese cooking. She blogs about food at Out to Lunch and tweets about it as @MadameHuang. She’s also working on two forthcoming books on the subject — “Simple Pleasures from a Chinese Kitchen: Authentic Seasonal Recipes from Every Region of China” and “Culinary Goddesses: The Women Who Changed Our Dining Landscape… Recipes Included.” — and is a regular contributor writing about Chinese food for Zester Daily. In addition, she’s even fluent enough in Mandarin to do court interpreting.
In any event, Carolyn has discovered a thing or two about what it takes to woo a Chinese family that truly loves to eat through food. So I sat down with her — from one yangxifu to another — to talk about all things related to food and Chinese family. As Chinese New Year approaches, it’s a topic that will come in handy for lots of readers.
To make your holiday to-do list a little easier, I’m rounding up all of my gift-giving advice in one easy post. Includes ideas for your Chinese friends and family, as well as hosts and even business associates. (photo by Christy Thompson)
(UPDATED February 3, 2018)
“What gift should I give?” It’s the number one question in my mailbag — and chances are, with the holidays coming, the number one thing on the minds of many readers.
To make your holiday to-do list a little easier, I’m rounding up all of my gift-giving advice in one easy post.
Giving Gifts to Your Chinese Family – A Modest Guide remains one of the top 10 posts for this site. It’s not exactly my favorite post of the bunch — which I guess is bound to happen when it’s your first stab on the subject.
Still, I feel this one does help on several counts. It’s not bad as an overview, and it offers great ideas for anyone doing their holiday gift shopping in China. So there you go. Read it, but remember it’s not my last word on gifts.
4 Tips for Giving Gift Baskets in China. What should I give to my loved ones/family in China? I’ve received hundreds of e-mails from people around the world, asking me for advice on this. Over the years I’ve discovered there can be a very simple answer to this question – the fruit basket, or even a well-chosen gift-basket.
Gifts to Buy Abroad for Chinese Family and Relatives. This post isn’t just for people with Chinese spouses/significant others and/or extended family on their list. It could be helpful for almost anyone doing their holiday shopping outside of China. When in doubt, stick with the more general suggestions such as chocolate or coffee (or see my final advice below).
Birthday Gifts for Chinese Men. What? Birthdays? Okay, the title sticks out — but the content fits right in. We could even rename this post “Christmas/Holiday gifts for Chinese boyfriends, husbands and other special men in your life.” In addition, some of the suggestions — such as the business card cases, briefcases/messenger bags, and unique electronic devices — could be great gifts for Chinese men and women who happen to be your China business associates.
Do you have a question about life, dating, marriage and family in China/Chinese culture (or Western culture)? Every Friday, I answer questions on my blog. Send me your question today.
Can this vegan and her non-vegan Chinese family share the same table in harmony?
Allison asks:
I’m a vegetarian in China and am finding that in general vegetarianism is a really difficult concept for people to understand here. Did John always know you were a vegetarian? How did that affect you guys when you were dating? and is/was it awkward with his family?Continue reading “Ask the Yangxifu: On Being Vegan in a Chinese Family”
The fact that my Chinese husband worshipped his ancestors inspired me to worship my own.
“I feel so hopeless.”
In the ebb and flow of my own moods, I had hit another low tide this past Friday. I didn’t want to feel this way, but the week had swept me under for a lot of reasons – from hormones to the fact that my Chinese husband John had a really bad week (for reasons I can’t get into right now). So there I was, sitting at the kitchen table and letting myself get pulled into a whirlpool of negativity.
Then I thought of it – or, rather, her, my deceased mother. And just like that, I sprang from my chair and my mental abyss, as if pricked by some invisible pin. “I know what we need!” I exclaimed to John as I started opening a little box in the corner of our living room. “A little help from our American ancestors.” Continue reading “With A Little Help From Our Ancestors”
What would it be like if my Chinese husband were an only child? (photo by Joseph Hoban)
“How is it your husband has two brothers? What about the One-Child Policy?”
The question came out this afternoon while sharing stories from my summer in China at a party — and, more specifically, photos showing my husband actually has two older brothers. One of the women at the party suddenly blurted the question out, because the idea of siblings just didn’t mesh with the narrative she’d heard all along about China.
I told them he was born in 1978, the first year the One-Child Policy began, and he happened to be the youngest in the family. “But most of the men younger than him don’t have brothers or sisters.”
In marriage, is love really destiny? (photo by Scott Snyder)
“I think love is destiny.” My Chinese sister-in-law Wenjuan blushed as said these words, her own definition of love in marriage.
But even though I understood her every word, I still didn’t get it. “What do you mean by that?”
She glanced down at the table and then met my eyes with an almost virginal shyness, as if she were yet to understand everything about love. “If a couple has destiny, then they have love. Love is a part of destiny.”
Love is destiny. I thought about her words long after we left the table — especially when I pondered something my Chinese father-in-law once said at my wedding ceremony:
There’s always someone out there who really understands you, they are destined to cross a thousand miles to meet. The same idea will bring two people together.
He never spoke of love between John and I; just that we had this destiny that bound us forever in marriage. I heard the same when I attended Lao Da’s wedding earlier this summer. When the bride’s mother praised their union, she called it “destiny” over and over again, never once coming out and using the big “L” word.
In China, how many times had I heard “destiny” invoked in the success or failure of a relationship? Before Lao Da found a wife, he used to shrug off the dates gone wrong and the girlfriends that never happened with this phrase: “We didn’t have a destiny to be together.” At the same time, so many Chinese friends praised the “destiny” between my husband and I — to the point that even I embraced “destiny” as the reason he and I came together.
If love really is destiny, then maybe that Beatles song could go another way — “all you need is destiny.” 😉
Have you ever heard “love is destiny”? What do you think?
"Won't you graduate already?" That's the pressure my Chinese husband felt from family and friends, wondering why he was over thirty, with no career or children. (photo by shno)
My Chinese husband John shot me his weary, it’s-way-too-late-on-Sunday look. I expected him to vent about his PhD studies the way he always did when he appeared tired — the homework, the papers, the feeling that you’re always, despite your best efforts, just a little behind. Behind it all, though, I always felt his passion, his love for the path he’d chosen — to become a clinical psychologist.
But not tonight. “I’m tired of being a student,” he sighed.
I dashed into the living room, as if his words signaled some emergency, that his lifelong passion needed life support. “What do you mean?” I asked, staring into his eyes for signs of something, anything, that could tell me what was wrong.
He hid himself behind a generic smile, the kind that doesn’t really mean he’s happy. “My cousin is my age. He is settled down and has a family.”
“So? Your cousin also will never be able to do what you can do after graduating.”
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