Comment on Getting too expensive
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Lol, when I was kid whenever I “misbehave” (aka: doing any doing anything she doesn’t like), my mother (we’re Chinese American) would joke like “hey, how much do you think you’re worth if I sold you back to China? … probably nothing since you’re worthless”
It was kinda joking, but I got half-scared too lol, couldn’t tell when she was serious.
She also joked to me she that “found me in a trashcan somewhere” and took me in.
What’s with these “jokes” lmfao 💀 I mean its funny but my soul dies a little 🫠
frog_brawler@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Damn, she’s kinda a dick
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
I mean, I’m not alone, I read a lot of users on reddit Asian communities that also said their parents “joked” about the same thing. I think its some weird cultural thing… Asians, I’m talking about Chinese specifically, tend to just be blunt about everything and joke about everything, like… if you watch enough media (which, I know, is not an accurate representation of life), you notice the differents in how people talk differently.
My extended family members (they’re from Hong Kong, we’re from Mainland) is also very blunt about things, so its not exactly unique to my parents. Like… I have no idea what a western family dynamic is really like… but from what I can gather on watching TV and movies, there’s like a different “vibe” to it.
It’s seen as toxic in a western family, but in a Chinese family, that’s just a harmless joke.
My mom also called me “肥仔“ (“fatty”?) which… by the tone of her voice, it’s supposed to be endearing in a way… like how you call a big/overweight cat a “chonker”, but its gets annoying after a while since that’s not exactly positive attribute since like she’s just say I’m fat and need to lose weight like every so often… apparantly this is a normal thing… in the Asian “overton window” of parenting.
My mom also joked and called me “二公子” (second son [of a noble]) as if we are nobility or something, like I think that’s implying that I’m too “needy” like a spoiled child or something… she said it with a positive tone as if its supposed to be endearing… but it feels kinda passive aggressive and sarcastic… like didn’t they give me a name (well actually I think that’s the paternal grandparents that had the most say in choosing our names), like I have a name, a legal name passed down by my ancestors… that just doesn’t exist? lmao… literally just one syllable (first character/syllable of the name can be omitted since my brother shame the same character), its literally easier to use my actual name than these weird joke nicknames that, I dont exactly hate per se, like I don’t feel offended or like sad, but its very annoying is what I mean.
I think sometime during my teenage years, I just started “rebeling” and called my parents by their real names… and that’s like a big no-no in Chinese culture, you are never supposed to use their real names, you are only supposed to call older relative by their relationship to you. So you can’t call an older brother by their name, but they can call you by your name…
I hated it.
So I just started using “死■” to refer to my older brother ([character for death] + [the last character of his given name, which I’ll redact for privacy reasons]). I did that ever since I was a kid and learned the death character. We fought a lot.
Wall of Text on Chinese names
For context: Chinese name are like (I’m gonna use English letters in place of the actual characters, like pretend this is algebra or soemthing): So, your name looks something like: Say: The letter F represents your family name, your brother would have ZA as their name, then you’d have ZB, both of you share the Z character, so you just refer to them by their other character that’s unique to yourself. Your father would have like XW for their name. So im summary, your father would have the characters FXW, your brother would have FZA, you’d have FZB, also the AB characters can actually form one word together. So using 死 and their Chinese character that is in this example represented by the letter A, is how my older brother and I just curse at each other, by insulting the name. Anyways, enough rambling about Chinese Names
As I got older, I even started calling my parents by their names, I mean… never use the death character on my parents, but I did just call them by their given names, sometimes their full names. At first, they got mad (they were also unhappy about me calling my older brother by his name, but this is next level of “crossing the line”), but then I just use the “This is 'Murica” excuse, and I read on the news that white kids call their parents on first name basis anyways, so I just kept doing that and they kinda just accepted it.
I don’t do that all the time, but when I really wanna piss them off, I’ll use their real names. xD, fuck tradition