I overhead the livingroom conversation and its annoying af.
“Why are you so fat, lose some weight. This is why get no girls”
“Why are you working such a shitty job, didn’t you go to college for 5 years? Did you ever get a diploma or are you this stupid?” (referring to the fact that the internship requirements weren’t fullfilled so no diploma was issued at first)
“You need to [爭氣]¹, stop being such a loser”
(¹爭氣 Antonym of 不爭氣 meaning: disappointing; failing to live up to expectations; so basically something like: “strive for more in life?”)
These are directed at my older brother, so then he gets insecure and starts be like: what about [him]? (he’s referring to me) so then he starts insulting me…
like dude wtf I didn’t yell at you, the fuck you targeting me for?
Then here’s the kicker: later my mom would also go say a lot of similar stuff, but directed at me instead and when my older brother is not listening to it, and from my older brother’s pov, he views himself as if he’s being unfairly mistreated and so he’s then hates me because of that, even thought I don’t exactly get any special treatment, I’m 5 years younger btw.
So like both my mom and brother would say a lot of shit to me and like bruhhh…
So… just your average Asian American household… 🙃
I feel like one of these days we’re gonna end up murdering each other then she’s gonna end up childless lmao… wonder if she’ll even feel shame for getting her children to murder each other. (okay kidding, don’t think murder is happening yet, but it does feel quite scary when the yellings erupt)
I know a lot of westerners here are gonna be like “go no contact”, but like honestly if Asians all followed the western standards, I bet like 80% of “boomer” Asian parents are gonna have estranged kids, this is just the norm.
Do you think like because the “overtion window” of parenting is different, that maybe sometimes you just have to accept that this shit happens, or should I just like embrace western culture and beome a “banana” (Asian on the outside, Westernized on the inside)?
Sorry if my thoughts make no sense, kinda just thinking aloud.
isn’t that common to all cultures? I mean, outside of any cultural specificity isn’t it a human trait? Humans like to shame others and it’s the other way around that is the exception.
My mom liked to shame me for being who I was. Even as a young little child I quickly realized how it helped her feel better about herself (something she really needed). But even without considering my own mother or anyone I may know, suffice to see how most of us will laugh when seeing someone watching falling down, or study how humor generally works: jokes that aren’t mean (at least, lightly) are the exception and the humorists using them are seldom the most popular. We love to laugh at others (a lot less so at ourselves). The difficulty being to not become too mean because then it becomes ‘not funny anymore’.
I’m almost 60, I have had my fair share of issues with my own family (starting at such a young age I would mots likely be considered a ‘deeply traumatized kid’ in today’s excessively worried society) but there is no need to end up killing one another, and even less so ti kill oneself. For chatting with your on occasions, I reckon you’re much younger than me but that don’t change much here: all you need is to start getting some independence from your family. You don’t need to break all ties at once, or ever if you don’t want to. Just start doing little things by yourself, on your own, without expecting any approval/support from anyone else. And more importantly, be ok with failing at doing it (whatever it is): failing is key steps in learning anything new, including being less dependent on parents. Or even learning to make your own appointments yourself (to link back to our last discussion, if I recall correctly).
Like, really, just start and be fine not doing it right at first… you will (quickly) improve if you don’t give up. Like you did, like all of us did, with learning to write or even to walk: nobody started by writing the next great novel best-seller, or by running a marathon, right? ;)
A norm is a set of habits transformed into a rule (moral or legal) by a group of persons with the help of time and… habits. Both of them, habits and rules can and should be changed when needed. Not saying it’s easy or quick, quite the contrary there is little that is harder to do, just that it can and it should be done.
Neither is a ‘undisputed truth’ like, say, math can be (sorry Indiana, Pi is not for you to define), nor is it ‘natural (or divine) order’.
Very often, it’s based on some ‘natural’ or logical considerations… I don’t know, think things like: ‘kids should be protected and cared for’, as obviously kids’re much weaker in many ways than us adults, and we can’t expect a toddler to go pick their own food, right? (but then it’s up to each group of humans to define what they consider as ‘being a kid’ that need to be protected and ‘being an adult’ that doesn’t need it as much… and no, one does not magically turn into an adult person the night they reach 16, 18 or even 21, that is 100% social construct); or consider this common idea: ‘Let’s organize and work together because we can do a lot more work in a day by working together than by working alone’ (but then we also quickly need to add some ‘enforcement’ to that spontaneous organization or it will almost instantly make all of us a lot less productive by wasting our energy and time lacking a well-defined and fully agreed upon objective, or by sheer individualism/egoism).
Things like that. No matter what, it is a human construct. Meaning we use those habits and rituals to turn them into more than what they really are. Exactly like many species will have developed their own rituals (look at birds mating, for example). All things that can and will change.
It’s called evolution in the natural world, while it’s often called ‘education’ in our human centered world. Two different words that can trigger many religious inclined persons because those two words question their own personal need to believe in some undisputed truth/rules and, often too, question their need enforce said believes upon others ;)
Those rituals and habits can be changed, and when needed they should be changed. Not saying this is simple to do, nor quick. It’s not, and I doubt there is little that could be considered harder and slower to change. But it’s something that can be done.