My huisband is chinese and grew up in Hong Kong, his parents both came from southern China in I think the 1960's. I am canadian and we live in Canada. We will be spending the new year in Hiong Kong this year. The family dynamics are very complicated as my father in law is no longer with my mother in law (who was the second wife but my husband didn't know any of that until he was about 10 or so), and my husband actually has an older brother that he has absolutely nothing to do with as he is the son of the (now deceased) first wife, and he grew up in China but lives in Hong Kong. My mother in law, as far as we know is not in any contact with any of her own siblings, but we are not sure why. My husband is not even sure how many aunts and uncles he has as his paretns are so secretive about everything, and he feels like he should not ask. We only learn of thing when someone happens to mention something.
This is so different from my own family background where both sides of my family take great pride in trying to figure out all they can about people going back generations. Right now in fact, my parents are in England on big geneology search, looking up long lost relatives.
I am really trying to ensure we are keeping up chinese traditions, and not just the english ones, but of course it is harder here. For example. My husband is the only one in his family in Canada, so we have no one to visit at chinese new year. I am thinking that I would like to start a tradition next year of having a Childrens chinese new year party every year for my boys and litlte friends. I think it is great to let traditions evolve as they do. I agree, it is not what the traditions is that is important, but the fact that you have them.
Would you mind to share some of the little rhymes you know? My husband too, seems to not know about a lot of the little kid type of things. He only knows 2 chinese nursery rhymes! Where as I know 100's of english ones. I guess being male he probably never really thought to remember things like that.
In the city I live having mixed race couples is quite common. In the fisrt moms group Ijoined with baby# 1, there were 5 mixed race babies, out of 13 moms, and in the one I am in with baby#2 there are 3, out of 12. That was one thing that really suprised me about Hong Kong. I guess I expected that since it is a MUCH larger city than where I live, there would be lots of people from all over the world, all different races, but there really isn't. Hong Kong definatley has more Chinese people, than Edmonton has white people. When I go to the mall here, I will see LOTS of people from everywhere imaginable. It is quite a lot more ethnically diverse.
This is so different from my own family background where both sides of my family take great pride in trying to figure out all they can about people going back generations. Right now in fact, my parents are in England on big geneology search, looking up long lost relatives.
I am really trying to ensure we are keeping up chinese traditions, and not just the english ones, but of course it is harder here. For example. My husband is the only one in his family in Canada, so we have no one to visit at chinese new year. I am thinking that I would like to start a tradition next year of having a Childrens chinese new year party every year for my boys and litlte friends. I think it is great to let traditions evolve as they do. I agree, it is not what the traditions is that is important, but the fact that you have them.
Would you mind to share some of the little rhymes you know? My husband too, seems to not know about a lot of the little kid type of things. He only knows 2 chinese nursery rhymes! Where as I know 100's of english ones. I guess being male he probably never really thought to remember things like that.
In the city I live having mixed race couples is quite common. In the fisrt moms group Ijoined with baby# 1, there were 5 mixed race babies, out of 13 moms, and in the one I am in with baby#2 there are 3, out of 12. That was one thing that really suprised me about Hong Kong. I guess I expected that since it is a MUCH larger city than where I live, there would be lots of people from all over the world, all different races, but there really isn't. Hong Kong definatley has more Chinese people, than Edmonton has white people. When I go to the mall here, I will see LOTS of people from everywhere imaginable. It is quite a lot more ethnically diverse.
