Blog Post : My Dad, the Tyrant of Communication

In my home, Chinese is the main language that is used. However, there’s difference in the way that I communicate with my mom and dad. My mom has become slightly Americanized and I speak to her with a mix of Cantonese and English( when I don’t know how to say it in Chinese). My dad, on the other hand, is strictly Cantonese. When I was a kid, he would always snap at me when I tried to talked to him in English. Even though he’s become more lenient on me, since I am an adult, and doesn’t yell at me for speaking English at home, I still try my best to speak to him in Cantonese only. You can call it conditioning but I’d like to think of it as his way of preserving my ethical background and I can’t thank him enough for it. Although I can only speak Cantonese in simple conversations, I can see the differences between my sister and I when we go out on the streets. My younger sister, born in America unlike me, has trouble connecting and communicating with the Chinese community to the point of not wanting to go in there. I’m more in-tuned with our culture and Asian values than she is. One good example is when we gather for dinner. In China, the family gathers together for dinner in the kitchen. This is ,from what I’ve heard, not that common anymore in American culture. They need a TV or something to entertain them or that each person of the family takes their dinner and eats in their own room. My sister doesn’t like this too much since she has to be away from the computer. I, on the other hand, like being away from the source of my hours of distraction and talking to my dad (he’s hilarious). On one occasion, my sister got bored and decided to take out her phone during dinner. I already hate it when people take out their phones in public at restaurants or during meals. My dad absolutely hated it with the burning fires of his very Chinese soul. He grabbed it from her and dropped it into a nearby cabinet. The dinner continued in awkward silence and only until the end did she get back her phone. I walked back up to my room, clenched my fist and raised it towards chin while I said to myself quietly  “Nice….”.

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