What is Thing That American Envies the Most About Chinese?
December 9th, 2007 by Andrew Chen
I read this article in Chinese about the thing that American envies the most about Chinese. The first thing I think of was the 5000 thousand years of history and the richness of Chinese culture.
It made me remember twelve years ago when I went to school in San Diego. It was the first year I came to the United States for School. I rent a room from an old couple and the house they own was a very nice one, single story with four bed rooms and a large pool by the woods. The old man had one limp leg caused by a gun wound during his service in the Vietnam War. I thought they didn’t have children when I moved in but I later learned from another roommate that they had three children, one of them in Hawaii and one in Idaho, the other one was also far away. I was having a hard time to understand why none of their children live with them. The house was big and nice and the old man had one limp leg and really need someone to help sometimes. That was something their children should have known for years.
My empathy for them especially for the old man came out of no where every time when I saw the old man limping along to his car. When I talked to the old couple they didn’t seem to have any disappointment about their children and they were in fact seemed to be pretty proud of them. It seemed that they had never expected their children to come back to live with them. It also seemed to me that their children never feel that they had the responsibility to take care of their limping father. Now I understand that not being taken care by children when you are old was something American used to. But still when I think of the old couple I will look down on their children even though I know I shouldn’t.
The article said that America is the playground of children, the battle field of the young, and the graveyard of the elders. What do you think?
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I live in Serbia, and if I understood you, our culture is similar with Chinese in question of parents-children relationship. My understanding of your text is that children live with their parents and take care of them. In Serbia children live with parents even when get married. This is not always case in cities where those families are with high incomes, but in villages there is no separated families.
Many young in cities are complaining about this and they hate it, but could not afford to live separate, because of financial situation. This is mostly because western campaigns which are trying to create classic consumerism society and to destroy Serbian tradition, which is too older then American’s. And they are succeeding in it…
In our culture when parents are getting old they usually live with one of their children’s family. Finance is usually not a reason for that. I think the society considers that a responsibility for the children to stay with parents when they get old and take care of them when it is necessary.