Oral History: My Taiwanese Family Through the Generations
In my Taiwanese family, one strong, connecting thread has always been the need to respect one's elders and to honor the family traditions. While in other cultures, individualism is stressed as an important value, in the Taiwanese tradition the individual is only as great as the generosity and respect he or she shows to relatives and loved ones. This is reflective of the Confucian system of values which stresses the need for children to show respect to their parents and to fulfill their obligations to them. Both my mother and my grandmother stated that outright disobedience as a child would not have been tolerated even though I, as part of my awareness of American cultural traditions, have been more apt to question and challenge what I have been told to do. Still, I do so in a respectful manner: I cannot imagine shouting and slamming the door to end an argument, unlike some teenagers!
Of course, some things have changed. For the older women of my family, marriage was the focus of their lives. My grandmother has many memories of being taught as a little girl to cook and clean by her own mother, in preparation for her marriage. Even though my mother received an education, she was always taught that marriage and raising children was the most important facet of a woman's life. In contrast, my female relatives my own age and slightly older view marriage and family is only one component among many in their lives: some are...
Family & Kinship (Anthropology) Kinship in Chinese Culture and Matriarchy (Dominance of Women) among Chinese Families: Case Studies in Southwestern China and Taiwan Anthropology, as the study of human life and culture, has developed through various studies and researches that have been conducted initially by Western social scientists. These researches have mainly centered on the "exotic" and native cultures of societies and nations located in the East, such as islands in the
graduate studies in the USA, and have been here for 8 years. It was difficult for me to interact with the American people because it was a polarized interaction. When I first landed on American soil, I was hosted by an American family. There was a 10-year-old daughter in the family that hosted me. The distinction of our culture from theirs and the general approach and beliefs became apparent
Jones relates that statement of Corrigan: "Our work suggests that the biggest factor changing stigma is contact between people with mental illness and the rest of the population. The public needs to understand that many people with mental illness are functioning, fully contributing members of society." (Jones, 2006) Jones states that "the social cost of stigma associated with mental illness is high because it translates into huge numbers of
Anthro In "McDonald's in Taipei," Wu describes the radical changes to Taiwanese culture that took place during the 1980s. The introduction of American fast food to Taiwanese markets symbolized the nature of the changes to Taiwanese culture that ensued. McDonald's is not singularly to blame for the decimation of the diversity of traditional Chinese food from the mainland, but prior to its introduction, there was a cornucopia of independent eateries boasting
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