Chinese Culture, Chinese Values, and Chinese Dramas

Watching Chinese dramas is a great way to get to know the Chinese. Being a Chinese myself, I could see a lot of values, beliefs, and culture being reflected on those shows. Some show the good side, some show the bad side. Chinese dramas have unique elements that set them apart from their Western counterpart.

Let me list down some of the elements found in Chinese dramas, and how they reflect the Chinese in real life.

The protagonist of the story has a good heart. She is being maltreated by the villains. Despite that, she does not retaliate and maintains her good actions.

That may be an exaggeration of kindness, but Chinese people indeed are martyrs. Not that they like people stepping on their toes, but they put other people (that is, their families) above their own needs and interests. For instance, if they are poor and have limited food supply, they would feed their parents or children first before themselves, even if they are hungry. Another example, old people experiencing symptoms of illnesses try to endure the pain and conceal them to their children to avoid having to spend a lot of money for their medications.

 
When something bad happens to the protagonist, he just accepts it as his fate.

That I believe is a very common characteristic among the Chinese. I've heard it a lot of times during conversations. They believe in fate as an act of the heavens. Their life is being controlled by outside forces and they could only do little or nothing about it. They have no choice but to accept fate.


A large family is living under one roof. The elders are the bosses. The sons bring in their wives in the house. The eldest male grandchildren is the favorite of the elders.

This shows the preferences to Chinese males. Chinese have the practice of lighting incenses to their ancestors to honor them. When they die, they too would like their children and grandchildren to honor them. Having male descendants would mean there is someone to continue the ancestry line. Therefore, male babies are preferred, while girls are despised. Fortunately, this preference is occurring less and less among families.


The Chinese father is the disciplinarian. He makes all the rules in the house.

Well, some very traditional families still carry this belief. The man in the house makes all the decisions.


Two people get married as a result of prearranged marriage (especially in dramas set out during the ancient times). 

Prearranged marriages are uncommon nowadays, but matchmaking still exist. The type of matchmaking that is very common these days is through introductions of families, friends, or agencies. In the Philippines, Chinese expats prefer to marry their own race in order to preserve their culture. With only a small percentage of Chinese in the Philippine population, it is harder for them to find the rightful partner - therefore resorting to matchmaking.

Learning Mandarin the Hard Way

The Chinese characters.

Source: Flickr Photo by heidi schempp fournier

As you can see in my bio page, I am from the Philippines. However, my grandparents are Chinese expatriates who came over the country to settle down. Both of my parents were born in the Philippines. In other words, I am a Filipino with Chinese blood flowing through my veins. But just like most Chinese-Filipino my age, I am very accustomed with the country’s culture, norms, and language. Sadly, the Chinese culture is becoming lost within my generation. Chinese-Filipino at this age tend to embrace this culture less and prefer Western culture. It is quite unusual to find a Chinese-Filipino of my generation very fluent with our ancestor’s mother tongue.

The Language of Chinese People

To give you a brief background, the Chinese expatriates in the Philippines mostly came from the Fujian provinceof China. So the dialect they speak is Hokkien. The official language of Chinese people is Mandarin. This is the language learned at schools. In the Philippines, Chinese schools do exist to cater to these expatriates. However, the government allotted only 2-3 school hours for Chinese studies. The rest of the hours go to all the required subjects being taught in Philippine schools. Therefore, in the morning, the subjects are being taught with English and Filipino as the medium. In the afternoon, subjects are taught in Chinese. In most Chinese schools, the subject matter is in Mandarin, but the teachers explain it in Hokkien dialect, but some schools implement Mandarin as the medium of teaching.

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Chinese School Systems

Most Chinese schools utilize rote memorization. There are lessons to be studied during the semester. Each lesson is usually a moral story. At the end of each lesson, the students were taught some vocabularies found within the lessons. Questions (related to the story) with fixed answers were also given out at the end of each module. The exams will then be like this: identification of the vocabulary words and questions to answer. Basically, to pass the exam, all you needed to do was memorize what was included in the module. Since Chinese lessons were explained in Chinese, it is difficult for those Filipino- English-fluent students to fully understand the concept of these lessons. That is why most students weren’t really very fluent in Mandarin.

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Relearning the Once Neglected Language

With globalization and the fast developing economy of China, Mandarin has become an essential language to learn. Those who neglected Mandarin during their school years were being sent to China to relearn the language. Mandarin indeed is becoming very important today. Most businesses here require collaboration with Chinese businessmen. Most suppliers came from China.

Sending kids to Chinese schools in the Philippines is not enough to hone their Chinese-speaking skills. Unless they go to Mainland China for a study tour or even a vacation, learning Chinese in the Philippines alone could be difficult. However, going overseas to study may be above the budget of some Chinese parents. That is why, in my opinion, it is still possible to learn the language through local Chinese schools as long as they take it seriously. Students should just be motivated to understand the lessons instead of resorting to rote memorization. They should also be encouraged to watched Chinese films and read Chinese books. This way, learning Mandarin could be achieved in a fun way.

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