The juxtaposed barrier between my Chinese/American manners

[jervispendleton]

Today my cousin just reminded me that our grandpa is dying. It's rather funny how I totally overloooked that his annual trip to Hong Kong was earlier than usual. It just flew over my head. The day he left with my grandmother was the night I came back. I would say it was my fault for not visiting them two weeks prior the first time I did come back.

Comments

[healie]

(joking) You speak good old american? Aight! What-up, Boo-ya!! Yo mama.

Jeez, I'm sorry about you're grandpa. I never got to know mine, which bugs me every now and then. But in general grandfatherly people have always held a soft spot in my heart.

Strange... I'm allways hearing about asian american familes. My first reaction to the name asian american is a to scoff, and roll my eyes. I have always been of the opinion that the only pre-requsit to being an american was being born on american soil. After all this is a country of immigrants. But I guess I am beginning to understand now. You maintain you're heritage through family. Sounds very confucian to me. :) Anyway, I'm kinda jealouse. My family is glued together by blood. We aren't a family in any sense of it. We don't do family activities. For as long as I can remember we ate alone, read alone, and essentially lived alone, amongst each other. We are all practically strangers to each other. Which makes me feel kind of sad. I've never really HAD a family like you have laura, and I haver been jealouse of some of my friends family as well for this exact reason. So all I can tell you is to cherish what you have. I'm sorry if I come off a little preachy, but I have little else to say... sorry *smiles* (I think this is why I hate christmass and my birthday *sighs*)

best wishes
~sean

[jervispendleton]

I'm sorry to hear that Healie. I do remember reading a bit about your family circumstances, of what you did share. I think a family is what everyone makes the shared effort to put into. I think in Europe people have great family bonds, not that I'm trying to generalize Americans. It's probably the water here.
And for some reason, I never consider myself to be an American. I don't think I'm Chinese either. I'm just me. I have Chinese blood, was born in Hong Kong which was British ruled(so am I British too?), lived there for 8 years, and here now I've lived in the states for 11 years and learned a lot in America especially through my teenage years.