Culture Appreciation

I grew up in the Philippines, but all throughout my early years, I was surrounded by Chinese people. I had little idea what other cultures were all about.

When I went to a non-Chinese college, my perspectives changed. Back in High School when every person in my class was Chinese, here in college, I belonged to the minority. The rest were pure Filipinos. My Chinese features made some classmates think that I was a foreign student from Mainland China.

Many of my classmates became curious about my culture. They would approach me and ask me to translate different words in Chinese. They would even ask me to translate their names to Chinese. Seeing me write Chinese characters amazed them.

Looking at how my Filipino friends got so interested in my culture made me feel proud of my heritage. It was also then that I started seeing the difference between Filipino and Chinese culture. I learned some stuffs from my Filipino friends, my Tagalog vocabulary widened, and I came to love Filipino songs. 

Teaching each other about one's own culture was a very interesting and educational experience.

Chinese Wedding Banquets

I just watched a 1990s movie of Ang Lee, entitled Wedding Banquet, on my laptop. The movie was set in New York, but the main characters where Chinese. As the title suggested, it's related to a wedding banquet. I found the movie interesting as despite the characters being in a foreign land, they still carried out the main traditions of the Chinese. That reminded me of our own wedding traditions here in the Philippines.

Wedding banquets are indeed very important among the Chinese. It may be true to many other cultures. A banquet of sixty to eighty tables may already be considered grand. Chinese want a lively party, the more guests, the merrier.