I was just wondering if there is a perception of chinese born in a foreign country from another. For example, the perception of Chinese people born in Britain in the eyes of an American. Are there stereotypes? Furthermore, are there differences in how they act? One thing I notice is that a lot of Americans may be better at speaking the language better than British, this is as the Chinatowns, where a lot of Chinese people live, are considerably larger and have a lot more than just restaurants (London). My perception of Chinese in American (I am from Britain) is that they are a lot closer to the typical Chinese person in Hong Kong. They seem to congregate in groups of Chinese people more so than in Britain and have the more stereotypical "Asian" look. I.E. hair Give your thoughts!
errr... if ur abc, bbc, or cbc and can't speak english fluently, u dropped the ball somewhere... even if u do live in Chinatown... as far as speaking Chinese, i'm Chinese nationally, but my bro's are all abc's... i've lived in the US since i was 3, so i'm essentially abc... however... I do speak better chinese than my brothers 10 fold... and actually two of my brothers actually lived in HK for about 3yrs when they were younger... and neither one of them can speak coherently... as far as being larger... uhm... i dunno... again i was born in HK, but i'm 6'1... but one of my lil bros is an abc, 18yo and he's like 5'6"... and as far as opening/working in jobs other than restaurants... it's probably more of a population size thing... Chinese restaurants around here are like McDonalds and Starbucks... u can't not find one just around a corner... finally as far as Chinese people sticking together and congregating... most of those aren't abc, bbc or cbc... most of them are 1st generation immigrants, and that's understandable as language and cultural barriers are hard to overcome... after many years of living here, those barriers start to come down... my parents have been here for almost 20yrs... and just recently they've started to finally build relationships with non chinese...
Umm, I meant speaking English, not chinese. Also I dunno if you're making a new point or replying to a point of mine, but i didn't mention anything about work openings. And finally, I did mean BBCs/ABCs congregating, not first generation people. I mean I see chinese kids band together in American more frequently than in Britain
You're correct in assuming that the presence of "Chinatowns" in the US skewing the amount of interactions between Chinese to the point where they almost don't even need to speak or know English; they could exist like they're in China. This is not true of the rural Chinese American. Devoid of such an ethnic and cultural center of gravity, their lifestyle is little different from that of their UK counterparts. An alternative is the rural Chinese dormitory, where a bunch of Chinese (usually restaurant workers) all live in a dormitory provided by their employer. Examples of these would be, say, at a Chinese restaurant in a rural Tennesee township. The entire Chinese population there would be the restaurant owner, his family, and the workers that they imported. It's a rather artificial Chinese community that sociologist haven't yet seemed to have focused on, that I'm sure also has profound implications for the Chinese diaspora. I thank you for a really thought provoking question. I think the issue of ethnic identity or solidarity, because of our greater chances to being able to congregate, becomes stronger here in the US, especially in the large cities. Hence Chinese kids, even second gen who only speak English, can be (subconsciously) ethnically selective in their choice of friends. Ralph
hmmm i'm not sure what abcs are like... but im bbc? and like 3/4 of all my friends out of school are chinese. I hang around ..with chinese ppl most of the time haha... (but not in school) in fact, apparently 15% of my school is chinese lol~~ maybe it's just liverpool and manchester lol apparently those down south in britain are different??
Well, I live in Southend, near London and I'd say the majority of Chinese kids hang around with English people, I find this is the case aswell in the North (at least in Hull) where I used to live. I think it may be because kids generally are less exposed to their own culture and therefore feel less of a need to interact with someone of a similar background. They don't need someone to discuss chinese cultures, festivals, food and perhaps a lot of them don't want to.
both in one fell swoop... In terms of speaking English, there is no Chinatown I've ever visited where TRUE ABC's can't speak english fluently... I understand what Ralph has pointed out where large Chinese populated areas such as the San Gabriel area in LA, or large Chinatowns in SF and NYC would essentially not require chinese immigrants from learning english as they can easily survive just knowing chinese... HOWEVER... if u were born in an english speaking country and grow up to not be able to speak english fluently... i'll be blunt... u completely dropped the ball there... i mean seriously, u can sit there all day and do nothing but watch tv and still be able to pick up english... cuz believe it or not... sesame street and barney actually work... regarding congregating ABCs... its not so much congregating Chinese... it's more to the effect of congregating Asians... Ralph is absolutely right in his statement on the issue so i'll just elaborate... its because we're culturally inclined to choose similar cultures to associate with... it can be as simple as wanting to date within the same ethnic background to collective vs individualistic ideals... do these things happen in the US? yes... but it doesn't mean it happens more in America than the UK... The US trumps the UK in terms of the Chinese population numbers... there's 6times more Chinese people in the US than the UK... Chinese people make up roughly 1.5% of the peoples in the US while Chinese make up about .8% in the UK... the ability for Chinese people to congregate also will depend on the number of the Chinese minority to the majority...
I mean, they can speak chinese better than English. "The Language" meaning the language of their ethnicity. I'm sorry if I made this unclear
u mean ABCs can speak Chinese better than BBCs? I dunno how true that is... again a larger population of Chinese will have an effect on this... for example, private Chinese schools that parents take their ABCs to... there wouldn't be private Chinese schools if there weren't enough Chinese in the area... also, just simply being able to use Chinese vocally on a daily basis... essentially what Ralph had stated previously...
i'm BBC... but there's not alot of chinese pple in my school....><" nevertheless....we do kinda band together cos of chinese school.... but then BBC's who have roots in HK do seem to hang out more an they do have the typical 'Asian' looks whereas the BBC's who don't just mix with everyone....(hope that made sense)
Another thing that people haven't yet elaborated on, is the age of such Chinese contacts. Having few Chinese teens or young adults to hang out with, means that some kids will only learn the kind of Chinese their parents speak, or act like the kinds of Chinese that they know. Seriously, when was the last time any young person talked to their parents about the size of someone's tits or penis, menstruation, abortion, et cetera, in Chinese? When I was a kid, you never spoke of such things with your parents. Your entire verbal repertoire was printed on the dim sum menu of the local Chinese eatery; you probably never even heard Chinese cuss words until you grew up, that is, unless you heard in from other kids in the street. Growing up in a large Chinese neighborhood means having the ability to speak regularly to other Chinese kids. You probably won't have any trouble spewing forth shit like "DEAL LAY GOR LO MO GOR CHOW HIGH, LAY GOR SAY POOK GUY!" Or, at the least, you would have understood exactly what that meant. And if you're doing that on a regular basis, that is, speaking a wide range of Chinese all the time, then you're going to have less of an ABC/BBC accent, be more comfortable around Chinese speakers with a larger than dim sum vocabulary, and be in fact, more Chinese. Another phenomenon that should be discussed is also the cultural reinforcement secondary to the Chinese vacation. My kids were loathe to speak Cantonese, but after spending a solid month in intense culture and language immersion (by way of vacation in HK for about six weeks) they were able to say stuff without me or the missus laughing out loud... -lol So it seems the more contact, with as wide a variety of Chinese people as possible, with greater frequency and repetitiveness of exposure, means the better retention of one's cultural identity. Additionally, here in New York, we have all kinds of Chinese; even amongst the Cantonese speaking community. I know Canto speakers from Malaysia, Viet Nam, and Myanmar, along with the regular HK'ers and Guang Dong people. And what's funny is that you can actually pick out their accents and know exactly where they're from just by listening to their Cantonese. Ralph
WEEEEEEeeeEEE IM A BBC....-rockon... WHEN I WAS AT SCHOOL....THERE WASNT MANY CHIN PEOPLE THERE =( BUT WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO LEAVE SCHOOL SO IN MY LAST FEW YEARS I DID NOTICE MORE CHIN STARTED AT THE SCHOOL BUT IN MY YEAR GROUP THERE WASNT MANY.. SO MOST OF MY FRIENDS WERE ENGRISH PEOPLE...WHICH I DIDNT REALLY HAVE MUCH OF A PROBLEM WITH I GUESS...JUST GOT TREATED THE SAME AS THEM....^^... MY CHIN...ISNT ALL THAT GREAT ...MOST OF THE TIME WHEN I SPEAK CHIN ITS MIXED IN WITH BITS OF ENGRISH AS WELL...BUT I CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH PEOPLE AND GET MY POINTS ACROSS AND I DIDNT GO TO CHIN SCHOOL EITHER...BUT SPEAK CHIN TO MY RENTS AND <3 WATCHING TVB....THAS WHY I CAN SPEAK A BIT OF CHIN...MY COUSINS WHO ARE BBC'S AS WELL....DONT SPEAK ANY CHIN EVEN IF THEY WENT TO CHIN SCHOOL.. WHEN I GO TO HK....AUNTIES/UNCLES NEVER FAIL CALLING ME A 'JUK SING MUI'...>_<
I tend to think that abc's and bbc's and whatever c's can't really speak chinese that fluently due to the fact that English is spoken more
That's true; the more a language is used, the more comfortable one becomes with it. Also, I believe the original intent of the question was to discern whether there were differences between ABC's verus CBC's, versus BBC's, vis a vis their "Chineseness" (if there can be such a word). That is, all overseas Chinese are not the same. They all have different mannerisms, accents, behaviors, styles, et cetera; that are geographically dependent. I alluded to this with my comment on Cantonese accents that are regionally influenced. The Chinese diaspora is huge, and there are distinctive local differences that make each of these overseas Chinese communities unique each in their own way.
there is definitely a huge difference, we are opposed to entirely different morals, customs, ideas, concepts..... we are different in practically every aspect besides but we are the same only because we remotely speak the same dialect and have a taste of what asian food would be and some familiar customs that have been dawned upon us from when we were kids by our parents or grandparents or from whichever generation was the first to immigrate..
abc... majority of my friends are chinese... cantonese... i am dating a white girl but speak fluent chinese... it all depends... i've never meet a BBC so i can't judge which has it better... all i know is that there are a lot of mexican here in USA
