What does cultural heritage mean to #AAPIs?

Episode 9 – If There’s No Fortune Cookie, Is It Really Chinese?

Angela Lin 0:14
We are super excited today because we have our first guest ever on the podcast, my dad! Daddy want to tell the world who you are?

Jeffrey 0:23
Okay, we’re moving to California in 1989. So it’s about 30 more years, and I have a business before now I’m retired.

Angela Lin 0:37
Awesome. Well, we’re really happy to have you with us today. Thanks for joining.

Jesse Lin 0:43
So last week, we talked a little bit about Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and how far we have to go to get where we want to be. But I think we wanted also to spend some time to really dive into what we mean by heritage overall, and I think it’s really interesting to look at it from an Asian American perspective, because we have both the American part of it, and the Asian part of it. And if you imagine where we sit, we’re kind of like in the middle of that Venn diagram where we’re in a unique position where we don’t necessarily belong to one culture fully, and we don’t necessarily belong to the other culture fully. So part of why we’re doing this episode is to have a discussion around what heritage is and what it means to us as Asian Americans.

Angela Lin 1:33
Yeah. So what is your sense of what heritage or the DNA of your culture? What does that mean to you?

Jeffrey 1:45
Oh, when I moved here, I’m already 30 years old, so 38 years old. So that means my basic [identity is] already Taiwanese or Chinese. Moving here, I try to get into this community. So I think I’m more strongly tend to Chinese or Taiwanese. Here, I just learn. You’re probably more adapted here, but for me it’s just I learned something new.

Angela Lin 2:21
If you could only pass down three things to the next generation that describe what Chinese culture or Chinese heritage is, and what’s most important there, what would you…how would you describe that?

Jeffrey 2:35
Number one, is Confucianism. That’s what Chinese is. Number two is Taoism. That’s also Chinese. The number three is Chinese character, the literature. In whole Chinese has a 580 different dialects. They can communicate because of the same character, so that’s the most important thing [for] you [to] call you as Chinese.

Angela Lin 3:04
So I think the language is the easiest for most of our listeners to understand. Can you tell us a little bit more about what Confucianism is and why that is such a foundation for Chinese culture?

Jeffrey 3:24
Okay Confucianism, for a simple explanation is you have no you, that’s most different than America. America you have to be yourself. You is you, me I, but in Confucianism, all your life is to fulfill your obligation as a role in the family.

Angela Lin 3:53
What about Taoism? If there’s a quick way to explain why that’s so crucial

Jeffrey 3:59
Taoism is another way of Confucianism. Confucianism go into the community, the family, the country, but Taoism is go away from there, like a hermit. You go to your own. Yeah, you join the nature. You do your own things.

Jesse Lin 4:21
There is some traditional sense of me or self in that heritage, because a lot of times what we talk about is, there’s like a loss of self when you become just obligation to others. But it sounds like from what you’re saying that’s important. It’s important number one for obligation to others. And number two, the obligation to your own spiritual self. So there is both a community obligation and a personal obligation. And I think what we’ve discussed before is we feel like the personal obligation tends to be quite low on the list. We like to say it’s number two, do you see it that way, or…?

Jeffrey 5:00
That’s true. Yeah, even you want to have some achievement, that is for your family or for your country, not for yourself. But when I’m here, I was very [impressed]. Here everybody talking about self, you have to be extra doing efforts for yourself. And in school, the teacher here will ask you to express yourself. But back to Taiwan or China, they will teach you what you need to remember. They probably won’t let you to express yourself too much.

Angela Lin 5:51
Okay, so I think that was a really great and insightful view into how you think about Chinese/Taiwanese culture and how it differs from American culture. We wanted to talk to you about language. And I know you already feel a little bit bad that you didn’t pass on Ke Jia Hua [“Hakka”] to me, that I can’t speak that. But I think it’s still an accomplishment that Jesse and I can still speak Mandarin, which is the most broadly used Chinese dialect, right? But we wanted to ask you, if you, do you feel any shame, regret, “yi han” because we cannot fully speak like as perfectly in terms of vocabulary, or that we can’t write Chinese as well as people in China and Taiwan?

Jeffrey 6:47
Of course, yeah, in the heart, I feel I did not do a good job as a daddy to translate this language to you, let you speak, or… I know both of you are speaking very fluent, but on writing I think you mostly forgot. But I cannot say anything because my English is not good. So even I learn, but so I know how hard it is.

Angela Lin 7:17
So that’s very nice of you to compare Chinese and English to the same, but it’s not the same because you moved to America when you were almost 40. So for you to even be speaking English at the fluency level that you’re speaking to us right now is like, a huge accomplishment versus Jesse and I, well, you can debate this, but theoretically, we were born Taiwanese, so it’s in our blood, that we should be able to speak Chinese even though that’s a learned language still. So even considering that you still feel like it’s like balanced, that our Chinese is not as good?

Jeffrey 8:00
Yeah you are okay, you’re good. Both of you are okay for now. You can, you can pick up the character, you can read the newspaper, that would be perfect.

Angela Lin 8:13
So if our if our future kids could only speak Chinese as well as we can, and write as well as we can, you’ll be really disappointed?

Jeffrey 8:24
I hope you’re going to be better. But if that’s life, then let it be. Yeah, I don’t feel that’s a failure, no, not at all. Oh, one thing one thing I want to let you know my degree or how good my English is, when Johnny is in elementary school, he always been, “Hey, daddy, what this words means?” So I will explain, until fifth grade he show me, “what it means?” I said, “why don’t you check the dictionary?” That means I know, oh, my English is fifth grade.

Angela Lin 9:11
Jesse and I went to Chinese school til we were 17 and I’m pretty sure our writing and reading is the same as like a second grader

Jesse Lin 9:19
Also a fifth grader, yeah

Angela Lin 9:19
Fifth grade is generous I think.

Jesse Lin 9:23
So do you think let’s say an American Born Chinese person that doesn’t speak any Mandarin can really fully understand what it means to be a Chinese person?

Jeffrey 9:32
You can understand. Because when I [was] in Masters School, Masters on Religious Studies, there’s a lot of professors is Westerners, don’t know Chinese, but he teach, he teach Buddhism or Taoism. That means they learn from the translation. So of course you can understand but not very deep.

Jesse Lin 9:57
Do you feel like when you moved here and your English became good enough to speak with other people you were able to understand like American people better like American culture and American way of life?

Jeffrey 10:11
Of course, of course. When I first moved here you know, in Taiwan I have English class in in this Junior High, three years in in senior high, four years in college, and plus almost 10 years in trading but [when] I first moved here, they always, “What? What? What?” I get that response, I’m like “What? My English is not that bad, okay?!” So you know, I already learned like almost 20 years of English but if you don’t come here, you don’t have the chance to practice. So your English still not that good.

Angela Lin 10:52
How long do you think it took from when you moved here to when you started getting along with and understanding Western people, because you in your business, you had a lot of like American customers, and you had to entertain them and stuff.

Jeffrey 11:10
Several years, like in the office, our sales manager, saying that his mother is 73 years old. And I say, “Oh, she’s old” and that salesman almost want to fight me. “Hey! Get out! Let me get a fight. My mom is not old!” But in in Chinese old is a respectable, but here you call them old, they want to have a fight, “let’s fight.” So that part of culture difference we need to gradually learn. Like when I come here, they say, “Oh, see you later.” So I said, “Hey, why is it almost two hours I did not see you?” That’s you need to learn from the daily life.

Jesse Lin 11:59
So I think the last thing about languages earlier you mentioned the three most important things you wanted to pass down was Confucianism, Taoism, and the writing of the language. So how do you feel like the introduction of simplified Chinese like jian ti zi has maybe changed the way people feel about their heritage their culture, especially in Taiwan, because everybody there as I understand still uses the traditional version of it? So does it make it a little bit more difficult to relate?

Jeffrey 12:35
Exactly Yeah. For Taiwanese I thought the simplified Chinese is diminish the Chinese culture. It’s like the cut down the connection from the old one and the new one.

Angela Lin 12:49
But you use simplified! I see you post on Facebook. You use simplified Chinese!

Jeffrey 12:54
Yeah, I live in China for so many years. So I I don’t against it. Because, as I understand life is changing, even the culture, the food, everything will be changed. Don’t try to refuse it, you accept the change and go with it. There’s 1.4 billion people use simplified, so what’s good you try to keep that tradition.

Angela Lin 13:19
Although I would say I’m biased because I only learned traditional Chinese, right? Of the very little I can write, I only know how to write traditional. And I would say, like, when I lived in Japan, I felt really proud of what I learned, because the Japanese people use Chinese characters in a lot of their words, right? And so I could say, “Oh, yeah, this is this restaurant sells beef. Oh, this is a tea house,” whatever because I could read the traditional Chinese characters and there is kind of a beauty in that that I could connect with this other culture because I learned the original language of our culture. Versus like, the last time I was in China, I was like 18, or whatever. We went to Beijing. And I couldn’t read anything. I swear to God, I was like, I know how to read enough Chinese. I don’t know how to read any of this. Because when I see simplified, I genuinely, I don’t understand how you guys like people who are from Taiwan, understand simplified. It doesn’t look the same to me at all. I can’t guess what half of the words are based on knowing the traditional.

Jeffrey 14:32
You already know the complicated one. So the simple one easy.

Angela Lin 14:37
They don’t look the same. There’s like an X somewhere, I don’t know why.

Jesse Lin 14:41
So the next thing that we wanted to talk about: traditions and practices that we pass on. So I think the first one that comes to mind obviously is the biggest one that both Asian people and Western people recognize, which is Chinese New Year. We wanted to kind of ask you what this holiday really means traditionally to Chinese people. And since you’ve lived in America and you’ve also seen how Asian Americans and Americans in general celebrate it, what you see the difference is.

Jeffrey 15:11
I should ask you too! Two of you, except that red envelope what do you remember about Chinese New Year?

Jesse Lin 15:20
The envelope.

Angela Lin 15:20
Yeah, I remember having to call all of my aunties and uncles in Taiwan and then being judged because I didn’t know enough of the ways to wish Happy New Year to them. Before you get the red envelope, you have to like bai nian, you have to like tell all your aunts and uncles like oh, Happy New Year, hope you have like good health, hope you have fortune, like all these other sayings before they accept your like blessings and good wishes and then they say okay, fine, I’ll give you a red envelope. So I remember getting yelled at by like, Yi Ma. Like our big aunt, ’cause she’d go “You didn’t tell me enough. That’s only three,” and I’m like, “That’s all I know!”

Jeffrey 16:13
Chinese New Year in our culture, it’s time to pay back your debt. Before, everybody is poor, you probably borrow money, borrow something from all the people, you have to pay back before the Chinese New Year. That’s important. Second thing is you have to worship your ancestors, thank them for give you the life or give you the heritage and third thing is you need to go to the temple to worship God to give you a fortune or protection for the new year. And third, you have to visit your your uncle, your grandpa, all those to wish them a good New Year. Yeah, give them envelope if they’re old. That’s a culture, very important because it before it’s a culture, uh, agricultural country. At that time, there’s nothing to do because that’s wintertime. So they take as long as almost a month to celebrate the Chinese New Year, but now it’s different.

Angela Lin 17:26
But you, in Taiwan you still celebrate for like two weeks?

Jeffrey 17:32
Yes, two weeks almost. Yeah. Like Christmas here.

Angela Lin 17:36
Yeah. So you just laid out a lot of inherent meaning that is behind Chinese New Year, the values behind it, what’s important to continue each year with it. How do you feel about a lot of that not being carried over into the way that Chinese New Year is looked at and celebrated in the US because you just named all those things, we never did any things when I was growing up.

Jesse Lin 18:03
Some of those things we can’t really do, right? Like we can’t visit our elders, because they’re all in Taiwan. So there are some things that we simply like we just aren’t able to do.

Jeffrey 18:14
Lot of people still need to go to work at the New Year. So you really cannot do something, do anything here. Just remember to call your elders to wish them a good New Year. Happy New Year, something like that. That’s enough for here. Of course, if you can go back to your hometown, to have the whole new year vacation there.

Angela Lin 18:39
When you moved here, your first year living here and Chinese New Year came, did you feel sad that you weren’t able to celebrate it in the same way that you were used to, for your whole life?

Jeffrey 18:53
Of course, of course, for the first several years, three to five years. We will miss that part. Yeah

Angela Lin 19:00
I think we’re getting to the things that make up the sense of heritage and culture. And obviously all these traditions are part of what makes up Chinese culture. It seems like you’re very understanding of like different circumstances, it’s hard to go back and all those things, but how would you feel if like the next generation past Jesse and me like don’t know any of these traditions that are attached to Chinese New Year, they never even know that that’s what is behind that holiday?

Jeffrey 19:34
My thinking is that try to go back to Taiwan for the Chinese New Year at least one time or, or twice or something to feel the difference. But even in Taiwan, the the celebration also very decrease a lot, not as before.

Angela Lin 19:54
So it is changing.

Jeffrey 19:56
Changing, the world is changing Yeah. So you cannot do anything about that, just try to keep it if possible.

Angela Lin 20:04
Okay, so then moving into a totally different type of practice that comes from Eastern cultures, we want to talk about things that were started in the Eastern world, but has now been really embraced and become mainstream, very popular in the West. So things like yoga started in India and was like very spiritual practice, and now is just like, everyone does yoga. It’s like exercise, it’s any other exercise, or like meditation, you are a huge meditator. You meditate for like two hours every day. You’re very serious about it, because you’re very spiritual. So how do you feel about, now, meditation is becoming very popular where people turn on an app and they listen to the guy talk to them for five minutes and try to start meditating. How do you feel about these things?

Jeffrey 20:59
Culture when they move to different situation, different countries, they change. Like Buddhism in India is totally changed by Chinese. Chinese Buddhism is different with India’s Buddhism. And the meditation, I’m heavy meditation guy. In Chinese culture or Buddhism culture, it’s about enlightenment. You try to be get enlightenment, the purpose of the meditation, but when that introduced to America, it becomes almost like therapy. Oh, let you calm down, move away your anxiety, or your your trouble in mind, all those things. But that that’s a good because it fits. You have to be that way to fit into America. Yeah. I know that even the Christian church they also practice meditation. Culture is merging, like democracy from the Western, they try to be bring into China but they’re not very successful but at least people are starting to doing that, that’s also good to the life of Chinese people.

Jesse Lin 22:12
The next thing is we wanted to talk about how how you and other Chinese people view Chinese history. So when we think of heritage, we think of the history that comes along with it. And a lot of the way that history is learned in the US is it’s very factual and you try to learn from like, the good and the bad scenarios. So when you guys look back at your history, like are there are there things that you extract from that, like that you learn from that, or it’s it’s just history. Like you said, you know, it’s in the past it doesn’t doesn’t matter anymore.

Jeffrey 22:46
Not just history. If you memorize it and in sometime in your life, you will you will know what that means and you will use it. I hope that to you too. Yeah.

Jesse Lin 22:57
Do you feel like the majority of people are proud of the history? They’re ashamed of the history?

Jeffrey 23:03
When you went to Japan, right? You know, you want to know Tang dynasty, you went to Kyoto. They keep all the Tang heritage in Kyoto.

Jesse Lin 23:16
I didn’t know that.

Jeffrey 23:18
Yeah, their dressing, the tatami. Yeah, the oldest is Tang dynasty. Qing dynasty like 300, 400 years ago, the GDP is one fourth of the whole world, even in Qing they’re very strong. The prosperous is Song dynasty. Song dynasty is very good at doing the trade, international trade. So everybody is very prosperous, very rich, their life is very good.

Angela Lin 23:45
So when you when you think back on all these different dynasties, do you feel like knowing that history is really important for understanding who you are or like influences you in some way, knowing where Chinese people came from and how they progressed?

Jeffrey 24:04
Yeah. For me, as a Chinese, I have to know where we come from and how this 3000 years or 4000 years passed by. So what our strengths is, what our weaknesses, that’s important for Chinese.

Angela Lin 24:19
So if someone, like if we, Jesse and I don’t know, about these three, four thousand years history, is that shameful?

Jeffrey 24:30
You don’t say shameful, you say you will want to know sometime.

Jesse Lin 24:36
A question related to that is both you and my parents came from Taiwan, but most of the heritage or the longest piece of culture comes from Mainland China. So how do you guys how do you see yourself in respect to that, since you live in a different, a different place that’s not the land where all of that originated from?

Jeffrey 25:01
There’s a huge argument in Taiwan about independence and Chinese. Yeah, that’s probably I would say 60% voted for independence and 40% still think they’re Chinese, they want to merge with Chinese. The issue won’t be resolved soon. I should say that if China government, Communist Party, change to democracy, I think no Taiwanese want to be get independent. If they’re like Taiwan or like America, they have that democratic government, everybody is free, then who want to independent? No, the independent Taiwanese against the Communist Party, they’re so control, there’s no freedom, that’s the main issue, but that will change.

Jesse Lin 25:50
So then you would say that most Taiwanese people and most Chinese people would agree that they have the same cultural heritage background.

Jeffrey 25:58
Of course, they come from the one culture. Just now the two different region, they against the Communist Party not, not of Chinese.

Angela Lin 26:09
How do you prioritize how you see yourself between being Hakka, Taiwanese, Chinese, and kind of American? You didn’t choose to get your citizenship, but you’ve lived here for so long, you’re basically American. So how do you see your rank of your identity amongst those four things?

Jeffrey 26:30
I think first, I should say, I’m a Chinese, then I live in America, but also, I’m a Hakkanese. Taiwanese, I’m not thinking that very important.

Angela Lin 26:43
Well, you’re the pro China, you’re the you’re the 40%. So makes sense.

Angela Lin 27:27
We are now in our fortune cookie closing section and we always like to end on a sweet treat. But before we get there, we wanted to invite you to email us like we always do. I think this episode in particular is very different from our past. So if you have comments or suggestions for future types of guests, feel free to email us at telluswhereyourefrom@gmail.com, again the “you’re” is y-o-u-r-e

Jesse Lin 27:59
So, the first question that we wanted to all discuss together is what we are most proud of where we’re from.

Jeffrey 28:08
Taiwanese is very flexible, because it’s a small island and there is a strong enemy there. So we have to survive ourselves. So we try to be going all around the world, to get the business, get the support from all other countries. So that I feel very proud. We don’t limit ourselves in that small island. We try to be go out to the whole world. Oh, you’re talking about fortune cookie. Did I mention that story?

Angela Lin 28:37
Nope, but you can go, you can go ahead.

Jeffrey 28:41
When Angela was four years, three or four years old, we went to Hong Kong to have Chinese food, that Chinese food is very good. So after the Chinese food I asked Angela, “How is the Chinese food?” “Oh, that’s not Chinese food.” “Why?” “There’s no fortune cookie.”

Angela Lin 29:02
Guilty as charged.

Jesse Lin 29:06
So what about you, Angela? What are you most proud of where you’re from?

Angela Lin 29:12
Yeah, I have two answers because the where you’re from is kind of loaded. It’s exactly the dilemma behind our podcast name, But Where Are You Really From? So I would say from the Chinese heritage side, what I’m most proud of is how much influence Chinese culture and history has had on the world, from being American I’m definitely the most proud of our roots of like America exists because we defected from England. That sense of drive and independence is something I’ve always been really proud of for being American and it’s something that drives me.

Jesse Lin 29:54
I think what I’m proud of about being Taiwanese is not necessarily like the historical culture or heritage, but the legacy of my parents immigrating here. And just understanding how difficult it was to do that, at that point in time not being able to speak the language, not having any family or friends here. And that legacy of like hustle, drive, like being self sufficient with what you have. I think that’s definitely something that I have learned from them. And from the American side of things, I just think that there are sizable communities of different cultures and ethnicities in the US that you don’t, I haven’t personally found in any other major city, in any other major country in the same way. So I’m really proud of the fact that you can find those kinds of communities here. I think that says something about what kind of a nation this is.

Angela Lin 30:51
Okay, and then the last question that we have for you today. If you could only pass down one thing about being Taiwanese to the next generation, what would that one thing be?

Jeffrey 31:02
Confucianism, because when you think about Chinese or Taiwanese, that’s the only thing that makes it unique.

Angela Lin 31:09
For me, it’s the food. Especially as I’ve gotten older, and I wanted to connect more with our cultural roots. Food is a really easy way to connect with that, because you’re learning about who you are and where your people came from. And it’s also really easy to connect with other people through food. So it’s like a really lovely experience to be able to share your culture with others through that.

Jesse Lin 31:36
I think mine would be the language. I really do believe that you can’t really fully understand a culture unless you can communicate clearly with them. So that’s definitely what I think is what I would want to pass down.

Angela Lin 31:51
Hey, speaking of things to email us, why don’t you guys email us what you were most proud of where you’re from, and/or the one thing you would pass down to the next generation about your culture. I think we’d love to hear that from our listeners.

Jesse Lin 32:06
Yes, please. And as always, you can send those messages to our email, DM us on Instagram. Like, follow and subscribe, and we’ll be back with another episode for you guys next week.

Angela Lin 32:20
And with that…

All 32:23
Zai jian bitches!