When you don't inherit your ethnic culture anymore

Ok, I really want to spit out about my confusion of being Chinese. My mom and my dad are both chinese. My grandmother is half-dutch and she speaks dutch to her family, even though they couldnt speak perfectly like native, they have traits of dutch origin. The family of my father originally is a native chinese, they speak mandarin until racism rule my country. Our chinese family names must be changed/localized and we were heavily forbidden to speak our ancestors language.

Now democracy has blowed up my country, chinese are return to speak their language and practicing their culture inheritance. But here I'm confused in the middle of my ethnicity. I neither speak mandarin nor dutch. Most of the third generations from this so-called cultural genocide have lost their cultural inheritance from their ancestor.

I'm confused of what should I associate as time grows. It's kinda hard to make me associate myself to my ancestor culture since I don't grow with them. Well that's true I regularly visit my family on lunar day celebration but it's only limited to that, I dont feel I'm being part of them anymore.

What will you do if you were me? being confused by your ethnicity and nationality and attempt to find what culture you should associate.

Sorry if my explanation is bizarre, I just dont' know what to say of this complicated feeling.

What you're describing is a personal thing; no one will be able to tell you to what degree you should associate yourself with Chinese culture. Some people take pride in heritage, because it gives them a sense of identity, and a sense of place. Other people don't care about being Texan, or American, or Dutch, or Chinese, or Christian, or anything else, for that matter.

It just depends on your own personality and where you feel the most stable.

You don't realize it but you have a culture, it might not be a traditional chinese one, but you'll find that quite hard to find anyway since your homeland is hellbent on denying history. =\

I'm a second-generation British Asian, but having been educated to a high level, and not your stereotypical ethnic minority with (in my case) a thick Indian accent, I feel more like a third-generation person. My parents, though very strict with me, didn't really impress upon me my own culture in terms of religion although I have had to absorb the cultural stuff, due to the expectations and interactions between other Asians and myself. They assume I am just like them >_<. I don't know all of it, and I speak my "native" language rather badly, but I tend to feel that my native language is actually English.

I guess all I can do is try to be as aware of the culture of my parents as I already am of British culture. You don't have to choose sides; as long as you show you are not incredibly ignorant of either, people from both backgrounds will still respect you and hopefully understand that not being able to clearly identify with a particular culture doesn't make you any less of a decent human being.

If you now have the chance to get in touch with your ancestor's culture, do so!

Your heritage is important, just like your race. It's something to be proud of.

Associate with the culture you come from! That's *your* culture. If now you can speak your ancestor's language and use your original family name, why wouldn't you?

Ethnicity comes before nationality!

I have to disagree. I think that a lot of problems are in the world because of loyalty to one's own race, often misplaced. It should never be "us" against "them". It is a teaching in a religion you may be familiar with that people should learn more about other cultures as well as their own. Self-segregation by one group only leads to more, reactionary segregation by other ethnic groups. As someone who has suffered at the hands of people with a mindset like yours, however innocent the intentions may be, it is abundantly clear to me that being overly zealous in this regard isn't the answer.

I don't try to see black/brown/yellow; I try to see "good" and "evil". And the only way to do that is to get to know someone and then judge them based on their own merits.

Originally Posted by umma

Associate with the culture you come from! That's *your* culture. If now you can speak your ancestor's language and use your original family name, why wouldn't you?

I'm afraid that in the end I would meet rejection. Just like Ulysses, I dont feel chinese anymore. I will just put it straight.
Thinking myself as the part of my country will face me to racism, even though I state that I'm Indonesian, people will address me Indonesian Chinese.
If I address myself Chinese or Dutch it will be nonsense because I hardly know about their culture.

Well It's not entirely bad thing that I dont have culture to be associated with. I see that I'm more open minded than general third generation who still bounded by their culture heritance. But still...

Define yourself by your own actions, rather than what people label you as. You don't have to subscribe to a stereotype.

I don't think there's anything wrong with calling yourself Indonesian. Even though both my parents are pure Chinese, I was born in America and English is my first language, so I'm an American. Yeah, I still get hit with a few stereotypes now and then, but racism is other people's problem, not yours.

On the other side of the coin, I also think it'd be a good experience to get in touch with your Dutch and Chinese roots. Learn to speak the languages if you can, asking your parents for help along the way. That way you don't have to be embarrassed to call yourself Dutch/Chinese-Indonesian.

Culture is very important to some people, but I don't think it's a big deal if you don't identify with yours in any real way. If I hailed from a culture I was proud of or was deeply affected by, I might identify with it, but I don't. I come from an amalgam of generic European white people, and my family no longer has any real cultural traits (unless you count being white trash as a cultural trait). Therefore, I don't have any real identity outside of myself and basic parameters I can't avoid being affected by (being white, female, etc). Being American is especially confusing because either your family has been here for 400 years and is just like everyone else's, or you're newer and will soon be assimilated from the culture of your home country.

Things that confuse me: people that are very patriotic and sentimental about hailing from a certain place. I don't identify strongly with being American or from my certain state either. I don't feel that anyone should owe their family or their country allegiance just because they were born there. If they're legitimately proud of it, sure. But if you hail from a place or a family that's shitty, I see no problem with losing the guilt and forging your own new identity that you pass on to your family. This doesn't mean I don't like my country or my family. It just seems pointless for me to think it's so much better than being Chinese or Angolan. It's just a place and an ethnicity.

Really what you want to be is up to you. You're going to be the one to decide of what you want to follow (both even), but be proud of where your ethnic origins lie in. Don't push aside one ethnic group or another, as I've finally learned and appreciated for my case.

Originally Posted by Dhsu

On the other side of the coin, I also think it'd be a good experience to get in touch with your Dutch and Chinese roots. Learn to speak the languages if you can, asking your parents for help along the way. That way you don't have to be embarrassed to call yourself Dutch/Chinese-Indonesian.

Forgot to say I have javanese blood too. I have plan to learn them near future, after I'm finishing my class with Japanese, German and French. Dutch will be next, but I will give Chinese lowest priority since it's so damn hard. Thanks for the encouragement.

Originally Posted by Umma

If you now have the chance to get in touch with your ancestor's culture, do so!

Your heritage is important, just like your race. It's something to be proud of.

Associate with the culture you come from! That's *your* culture. If now you can speak your ancestor's language and use your original family name, why wouldn't you?

Ethnicity comes before nationality!

Yes and no in America. There are some races/groups of people that will not accept you even though you may have 50% their blood.

Originally Posted by eriol

I'm afraid that in the end I would meet rejection. Just like Ulysses, I dont feel chinese anymore. I will just put it straight.
Thinking myself as the part of my country will face me to racism, even though I state that I'm Indonesian, people will address me Indonesian Chinese.
If I address myself Chinese or Dutch it will be nonsense because I hardly know about their culture.

Well It's not entirely bad thing that I dont have culture to be associated with. I see that I'm more open minded than general third generation who still bounded by their culture heritance. But still...

I know what you mean. I'm 1/4 American Indian and both of my grandfathers are 1/2 American Indian (which makes my parents at least 1/4 each and that is passed down to me). My father's tribe hid in the mountains in order to avoid the Trail of Tears movement while I think my mom's tribe either moved with them and then moved to MO/KS or hid in the mountains and then moved to the MO/KS region.

Even into the 1980's, if you claimed to be any part American Indian, you were considered lazy and were not hired for a job. My full-blooded great-grandmothers (2 of 4) were in love with white men (of mixed Euro-Caucasian nationalities) and claimed to be white b/c they were able to pull it off so they could get jobs and work.

I want to learn more about my American Indian people, but I have a few problems: 1) My tribe was destroyed in the Trail of Tears, so I can not register myself as part American-Indian unless I have tribal papers (even if I were pure-bred, I still have to have papers to receive scholarships and such, unlike other races in America). 2) It's really hard to get accepted/adopted into a tribe in order to learn more about them, especially if you look white (which I look more like an albino Indian or an exotic Caucasian). I seriously make Conan O' Brien look Hispanic in skin-tone. 3) The tribes especially frown on people who want to learn more about a tribe "just to discover their heritage and reconnect with their ancestors". These people, even if they do take the blood test to prove they are more than 1/16 American Indian and can prove that their ancestors were on the 1920's census rollout, would never be fully accepted by the tribe. 4) Other people look at me and tell me that b/c I wasn't raised in an American Indian home that I'm a white girl and should put down white b/c I am more white than I am American Indian (especially the African-Americans, I don't know why, but it seems to annoy them that I won't claim to be full-blooded Caucasian). Truthfully, I have more American-Indian blood than Irish, Scottish, British, German, etc., but it's all about the skin color in this region.

I do encourage you to learn as much about your ancestory as possible. I do understand about your family having to give up their heritage in order to satisfy the demands of Government at that time (as did my family). I claim to be "other" now, even though I am nowhere near as knowledgable about my tribe of people as I want to be. However, I think it's wrong to deny someone their heritage because they don't act/look like a pure-bred model of it.

Go for it, but be careful about the backlash.

Originally Posted by Ulysses

Define yourself by your own actions, rather than what people label you as. You don't have to subscribe to a stereotype.

I've had so many random stereotypes thrown at me, it's sometimes even funny.

But seriously, like Ulysses said, make your actions speak for you, and people will respect you for that.

Both my parents, both Korean, are very strict about their culture. They even go as far as telling me that I should only marry a Korean girl, which I find ridiculous. I was born and raised in America, so I consider myself more American than anything else. But it's good to embrace your other culture though. You have the sense of "uniqueness".

AH, to hell with loyalty to ethnic culture.

I am what I am, I can't be expected to behave like every other chinamen around.

You're lucky you didn't get judged as hating yourself for who you are (I was unlucky in the "don't act your race/age thread).

If you read my post there, I act a lot like an Aussie, but I take pride in my Chinese heritage. My morals and ethics are mostly Chinese. My actions and outlook in life are Aussie.

And though I'm never forced to "choose" which person I am, if you're in a country that is not where your ethnicity is, then you will always be branded one. I will, no matter how Aussie I am, be always branded a Chinese. Actually, I don't really mind, cause that is what I am.

Um... well to answer your question, it would probably be best doing what you're most comfortable with. Act Dutch, yet take pride and follow the morals and thoughts of your Chinese/Indonesian heritage.

In the end you get the best of both worlds.

Originally Posted by Umma

If you now have the chance to get in touch with your ancestor's culture, do so!

Your heritage is important, just like your race. It's something to be proud of.

Associate with the culture you come from! That's *your* culture. If now you can speak your ancestor's language and use your original family name, why wouldn't you?

Ethnicity comes before nationality!

Are you insane.

This is exactly why people have trouble with each other in the world. Ethnicity and culture pride is all fine and good, but don't make it a priority. You're HUMAN first and foremost.

This is like ethnic jingoism.

It's nice to know your family's native language, history of your ancestors, et cetera - but really - you can't embrace it too much. Especially if you're going to melt into another culture entirely. People are understanding, but when you yap on and on about what ____ culture is like, people are going to start getting annoyed.

Remember your roots, but don't make your roots more important than being human.