Traveling as an adult with my Chinese parents is very comfortable, but also disconcerting I don’t often spend full, uninterrupted days with them anymore, and similar to my friends from HS/college from whom I’ve drifted, we don’t share as much life-context as we used to
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chad donkey from shrek 2 Retweeted QC
Unlike on trips with friends, I’ve noticed that it’s strangely difficult for me to make hours of observational small talk with my parents In part I think it’s because we already have unconditional relationships & we aren’t searching for affirmation from each otherhttps://twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1211943537870172161 …
chad donkey from shrek 2 added,
QC @QiaochuYuanReplying to @eigenrobot @aphercotropist and 2 otherspractically speaking, as a contingent fact about atomized culture, the only thing anyone is ever doing in a social conversation is asking questions like "do you like me? do you want to connect with me? do you love me? do you want to play with me? can i trust you?"1 reply 0 retweets 5 likesShow this thread -
But I know it’s also partly because of how little we’ve *openly* communicated with each other in our lifetimes I’m talking about the subtextual stuff, conversations with real emotional stakes Things like insecurity, identity, history, regrets, etc.—and how we feel about them
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I enjoy talking about this stuff with my friends, but my parents haven’t really exercised their vocabulary for this kind of thing I’ve tried to broach these topics with them, but I’ve mostly encountered discomfort and sometimes defensiveness
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And I have a good relationship with my parents! Relative to the Chinese immigrant families I grew up around (my parents’ friends), my family actually seems more communicative, self-aware, and socially cohesive than average
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It’s easy for us to talk about safely impersonal things like sports, personal finance, ‘politics’, & funny family stories But I also spend a lot of my time & headspace on interpersonal things like work, friends, and dating—all of which feel like cagier subject matter
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These represent a cultural universe that Chinese parents often find inscrutable and unpalatable Our baseline assumptions and values seem to diverge pretty sharply here, and their advice often doesn’t work quite as well in my context
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I wonder what it would take to break those conversations open with my family, to really reveal ourselves to each other? I wonder to what extent it’s even possible, and somewhat guiltily, I wonder how much effort it’s worth?
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Replying to @choosy_mom
It's a lot of effort, considering the huge contextual gap even w the great starting place of a good relationship To add some nuance? Maybe unless your values/choices start to diverge sharply from legibility (to them), things are Good Enough? Not sure how that feels to you?
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I think we implicitly understand which conversations are off limits, but as far as I can tell, everyone’s quite satisfied as it is But one thing I haven’t explored is whether my parents even *want* to access this kind of vulnerability Might actually be quite unpleasant for them
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