I mean… my parents really hates even a tiny bit of waste. Like the phrase 粒粒皆辛苦 (Something like: “Every grain [of rice] is from hard work”) is said to me whenever I leave like idk a tiny bit of rice in the bowl. Like… Lol.
There was also this I guess Mao-era slogan that goes something like 浪费是极大的犯罪 (Waste is a serious crime) that I hear my father talked about.
(I never really initiated a conversation about how thing were back then, because we aren’t really on speaking terms anymore and I didn’t want to end up in an awkward conversation where they belittle me about every time I did something that costed them money.)
But just from these two phrases, its an obvious tell-tale sign of how thing were. My mom always tell me that since I have food, clothing, shelter, I have basic needs of survival and I should be grateful to be born in this family, and also I should be grateful for being lucky enough to be able to come to the US. “你已經好幸福了，好多人都冇身份來嘅” (Idk how to translate this, somethinh like: “You should be very happy(?) about things, a lot of people don’t even have legal status” basically expecting me to “be grateful” and not complain about anything) I mean, I did have Chinese-American classmates whose parents came without permission.
So… like toys and entertainment is literally never talked about, that’s considered luxury, I rarely had anything fun.
I mean, new immigrants also had shitty jobs, I was stuck in afterschool programs (because I don’t think minors are legally be allowed to be at home without an adult) until like 6PM, then I’d be the last one to get picked up. Like almost every day.
So I guess from this, yes, things are probably not going great. Especially for new immigrants.
Not to excuse those people who do those weird things you described, but I think you probably shouldn’t judge too harshly, hardship makes people act like that.
I mean… my parents really hates even a tiny bit of waste. Like the phrase 粒粒皆辛苦 (Something like: “Every grain [of rice] is from hard work”) is said to me whenever I leave like idk a tiny bit of rice in the bowl. Like… Lol.
There was also this I guess Mao-era slogan that goes something like 浪费是极大的犯罪 (Waste is a serious crime) that I hear my father talked about.
(I never really initiated a conversation about how thing were back then, because we aren’t really on speaking terms anymore and I didn’t want to end up in an awkward conversation where they belittle me about every time I did something that costed them money.)
But just from these two phrases, its an obvious tell-tale sign of how thing were. My mom always tell me that since I have food, clothing, shelter, I have basic needs of survival and I should be grateful to be born in this family, and also I should be grateful for being lucky enough to be able to come to the US. “你已經好幸福了，好多人都冇身份來嘅” (Idk how to translate this, somethinh like: “You should be very happy(?) about things, a lot of people don’t even have legal status” basically expecting me to “be grateful” and not complain about anything) I mean, I did have Chinese-American classmates whose parents came without permission.
So… like toys and entertainment is literally never talked about, that’s considered luxury, I rarely had anything fun.
I mean, new immigrants also had shitty jobs, I was stuck in afterschool programs (because I don’t think minors are legally be allowed to be at home without an adult) until like 6PM, then I’d be the last one to get picked up. Like almost every day.
So I guess from this, yes, things are probably not going great. Especially for new immigrants.
Not to excuse those people who do those weird things you described, but I think you probably shouldn’t judge too harshly, hardship makes people act like that.
Thanks