What is Chinese Culture

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When you hear the words 'Chinese culture', some things might begin popping up in your head. It could be the porcelain vases with flower designs, tea sets, big round red lamps, calligraphy brushes, or the long red silk dresses for women. Chinese civilization dated early back several centuries ago and perhaps that is the reason why the culture has become this well-known and influential.

The country of China is huge, as well as its population. Many Chinese people ventured out far beyond their borders and migrated to different countries, and established their own Chinatown on foreign soil.

I have Chinese ancestry, but I live in the Philippines. I was born here and raised here. But just like many of the Chinese families that were established here, our culture still remains relatively intact, making us very distinguishable from the locals. The Chinese language also remains with us, though not many of the younger generations can speak fluently anymore.

We get a little bit of influences from outside cultures as well. But the elderlies, particularly the very traditional ones, insist on preserving our culture and language. As many of us had witnessed, some Chinese who were married to locals lost the culture and language. That is part of the reason why the traditional Chinese families prefer to marry their children to fellow Chinese.

I am a third generation Chinese in the Philippines. That doesn't make me old enough to witness the gradual transformation of our culture here. Perhaps our culture here has already changed throughout these years that the Mainland Chinese may be shocked to find out about. No doubt, we might have already lost some parts of the culture already, in order to welcome the culture of the land we live in. I am very much interested to find out how the Chinese culture of other overseas Chinese from other countries (such as Malaysia, US, and Singapore) has developed as well.

What I can say is that the common ground of our culture across the globe, despite the assimilation of the foreign influences, are the language, the yearly celebrations and festivities, marriage practices and beliefs, and of course, our strong appetite for Chinese cuisine!