Anyone in a cross-cultural relationship is confronted with cultural clashes on a regular basis. One of the most constant issues I deal with is my relationship with my parents. At 27, I am still living with them. And I somehow manage to have a wealth of things to chat to them about. In terms of decisions in life, they are an important consideration for me, and vice versa. However, this might seem almost pathological to a Westerner.
I don’t think it is simply that the parent-child bond is weaker in the West as it manifests in different ways. Parents and children take pride in independence whereas in China, traditional family bonds are further accentuated by the one child policy, often resulting in a codependent relationship. We are closely involved in each other’s lives and often feel each other’s happiness and quality of life is our responsibility.
If you want to see how powerful this bond is, just ask anyone what kind of person they want to marry. And expect the answer to include ‘孝顺爸妈/xiao4 shun4 ba4 ma1/respect and love (their own and my) parents.’ The fact is in China, you are not just marrying the person you are marrying.
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March 16, 2009 2:43 pm
Absolutely agree. I’m lucky that my in-laws are pretty spectacular, but I’ve heard plenty of horror stories…
March 16, 2009 2:47 pm
I couldn’t agree more. It is something I struggle with somewhat with my wife who is Chinese.
I would consider myself close with my parents, but cannot imagine a world where I would call them every day as my wife does.
I also don’t feel as deep a responsibility to them as I’ve seen in Chinese friends. This isn’t to say I don’t care about my parents, or that I wouldn’t care for them if they really needed me. However, I’ve seen on numerous occasions here in China where the Chinese half is expected to make large sacrifices for the betterment of their family – sometimes much to the detriment of their future success and independence.
Where I view this as selfish behavior on the part of the family, and something I wouldn’t normally tolerate, I can (at least peripherally) understand that there is a huge cultural gap here that I don’t fully understand.
I’m fortunate to have some of the best inlaws a guy could ask for though, and that gives me the flexibility to take my time in understanding these differences.
March 16, 2009 2:50 pm
John B,
It’s so cool to have in-laws from Inner Mongolia. I suspect half of the in-laws from hell are from Shanghai…
March 16, 2009 3:00 pm
Ryan,
You are indeed very lucky. You must feel this almost magic moments too where you marvel at how people from different ends of the world become one family.
March 16, 2009 3:17 pm
I think this is all the legacy of the single child policy. Old China didn’t operate this way. They used to have sons and daughters in the family. So the sons will uphold the filial piety virtue in the family and the daughter will help her husband fulfill his responsibilities to her in-laws. With this arrangment everything worked fine until the single child policy. What if your family begets a daughter? You’re cool with the idea that your only child can leave the house and do and go whereever her husband wants? If you can take care of your yourselves, that’s alright. But what if you can’t? So that’s why you are marrying the whole family guys, it comes in a package
March 16, 2009 5:12 pm
Joe Thong,
Yes, the one-child policy certainly has made its contribution. But I would say that on top of filial piety, what the policy has done is concentrating love, attention and hope all on one child. It often results in excessive co-dependence , which isn’t good to either the parents or the kids.
March 16, 2009 10:22 pm
The “out-laws” as I affectionately call them are a spectacular couple from Nanjing. The only cross-cultural gripe I have sometimes is that they treat me better than their own daughter at times.
March 16, 2009 11:18 pm
I’m now living in North-West Spain, having spent a couple of years in Beijing. Coming from England I expected to see more similarities with what I am used to from ‘home’ in Spain than in China. Surprisingly I’ve found that here in Galicia the parent/child relationship shares more similarities with that in China than I had expected.
People here often stay at home until their early 30s and usually choose to stay close to their parents when they move out. Parents pay a greater part in decisions of their children than is normally the case in the UK.
Students here will normally go home from university to spend time with their parents at the weekend. This came as a shock to me, as in England a large part of going to university is that one gets one’s first real taste of independence.
Anyway, this is simply to note that there is quite a large diversity even across Western Europe in the parent/child relationship. The East/West differences may not be as simple they appear.
Keep up the great work,
Jonathan
March 17, 2009 12:12 am
John E,
The ‘out-laws’, how endearing! You are a very blessed man.
March 17, 2009 12:16 am
Jonathan,
Thank you for sharing that! It is very easy to generalise a certain culture and people, (I often do in my posts). So thank you for informing us with your rich experience.
April 21, 2009 1:25 am
Hi Jenny,
Thanks sharing your story so honestly. I really like you openess sharing so honestly your insights. As you said the one-child policy certainly has made its contribution and influenced Chinese young adults towards being often co-dependent, which isn’t good to either the parents or the kids.
I think in the Westerner societies (North America, Europe) it is not much different, where the 1-child “policy” is practiced without being forced by the government. Since the 80′s most of the families having 1 child… So the situation is similar… still we can not see such a co-dependence like in China. What do you take, why?
Is that simply the cultural difference? Or something else, (as well)?
July 16, 2009 3:33 pm
Jenny, Jonathan
As you have pointed out, it is hard to categorize cultural traits as Westerner or Asian. Would you classify Africans or Latin-Americans as Westerners? Geographically they may be so, but in terms of your dichotomy they may be regarded as more Asian.
You may have heard of the terms individualist and collectivist, which refer to concepts used to classify different cultures in terms of how much their individuals value relationships. According to these categorization, Africans, Latin-Americans, East-Asians, are all collectivist, as they place high value on harmonic relationships. On the other hand, Anglo-Saxons and Nordics are individualist, as they praise independence. Spaniards, Italians, and others lie in the middle of the scale.