Cultured Families

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Cinderpelt

Cinderpelt

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I love my friend Diana to death.

She is deliciouss :)

Diana is Vietnamese, and her culture is extremely intriguing.

Yesterday I rode her bus home after school and we were going to hang out and I was going to sleep over.

I have never been over to her house before, and the household itself is run way different than the typical American home I live in.

First of all, she lives with her grandfather who does not speak a single ounce of English. And they're very polite in their household - we had to bow and say, "allo," to her grandfather when entering a room with him in it. It's a "respect your elders," thing.

The food is another thing. My house is typical American - chips, pizza, mac n cheese, lunch meat to make sandwiches. For snack after school with Diana, however, we had fried rice and potatoes.

At my house, we eat dinner between 5-6PM. Diana's family waits until her parents are home from work. They eat around 10PM, which is around what my parents consider, "bed time." Her mom cooked a delicious Vietnamese veggie soup. It's more traditional than my house. I know after a long day at work and not getting home until after 9PM, my mom would never cook us dinner. But even after a lengthy day, Diana's mom made a home cooked meal and cleaned the kitchen, still holding on to some of the traditional female role.

They have Vietnamese television, without the subtitles. I found it hilarious that her family only spoke English for my own benefit. A lot of times Diana's mom would just ramble on to her and Vietnamese, and all conversation between the adults was in Vietnamese as well. Diana found it funny that she could understand what they were talking about and I couldn't.

The discipline is different too. I used to get spanked, like, when I was younger, but now I get grounded. Diana doesn't get grounded, and she admits she doesn't understand it. Her mom yells at them and gives them a smack across the face, which to me seems like a more traditional method of discipline / parenting.

I dunno. I just found this very interesting. We live about 15 minutes apart from each other and are both human beings, but yet the methods of which the household runs are entirely different.

I just felt like sharing. Discuss? Similar situations?

 
Well yeah. My family is different from most families.

I mean, we live in America but my parents have lived in India till they were married.

We're not like most Indian families you would see in India, but we aren't like most American families either.

Example--we are probably more laid back about what we wear. Like in India, you wouldn't see anyone dressed the way I dress. At least not walking on the streets. I doubt you would see bikinis, which I wear too much of. And shorts as shorts as the ones I plan to wear today--I don't know where one would find them. Sure--things are changing there, and it's not as bad as it was five years ago, but still.

My parents both speak Hindi, which I only understand. I speak very little, because I tend to screw up the pronunciations. But it's useful to be able to understand other languages.

We get Hindi TV. Or channels you would mostly find in India. It's hellishly useful for when you wanna watch screwed up reality TV. Or Bollywood stars look stupid. :)

We mostly cook Indian food. I eat rice and make it pretty darn well, if I may say so myself. I'm a sucker for curries and masalas. Though I'm not big on dosas and such.

I adore butter chicken. Absolute best.

And we have our fair share of Americanized food. Burgers twice or thrice a year. A heck of a lot of pasta. And fish.

I'm not really a sandwich salad person however.

I don't know how to explain it any better. It's just that we have parts of Indian culture in our household and parts of us have become more Americanized.

Ahh. Our house is furnished beautifully from pieces all over the world. Not sure what you'd call that.

 
I'm too lazy to make a big block of text, but I guess my family are quite unique.

My mum's Korean, and my dad's English, so it's this mix of both.

Like, Korean food and games, English TV and music, holidays from both cultures and so on :blink:

 
My house is similar to hers. I'm chinese. Well, my parents don't let me sleep in or stay up late. We eat home cooked meals everyday that consist of rice and random vegetables. We speak chinese at home, well, everyone but me does. The only form of punishment we receive is taking away internet privileges.

 
My house is similar to hers. I'm chinese. Well, my parents don't let me sleep in or stay up late. We eat home cooked meals everyday that consist of rice and random vegetables. We speak chinese at home, well, everyone but me does. The only form of punishment we receive is taking away internet privileges.
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Sounds a lot like what I eat XD

 
My best friend ever is French. they moved here 2 or 3 years ago from France = epic.

Well with the food, they eat a lot off similar and different foods. They have the basic potato and chicken, but then she has those eggs with the filling in them, fish, and some other random stuff.

There house isn't the slightest bit old, although it looks a tad rundown. But my friend told me that's the way its supposed to be. And their walls are covered with several abstract paintings.

And nothing else is different than the average Canadian home.

And then there's this portugese kid in my class. I dunno his culture because I've never been over there. But his family is very..... classy. In a way. Disigner clothing (TOP designer), fancy food like lattes and omlettes. I know that little from their caffe. lol

 
I don't know too many diverse families. The town I live in is pretty uncultured.

My one friend, however, is from the UK, and they eat 4 meals a day instead of three. lol.

But her father is from India so they have a lot of Indian related things around their house, and do a lot of cooking from there.

 
My dad's Hungarian and my mom's American.

We are most like the average Jewish American home. We don't really have any Hungarian traditions or anything. The only thing different is that during the week we all eat dinner at our own times, except for the weekends on Shabbos, when we eat Friday night Shabbos dinner and Saturday Shabbos lunch. Most Jewish families have a Shabbos dinner while it's still Shabbos, but we usually wait till Shabbos is over and we make pizza, eggs, or defrost pancakes or waffles. My older brother usually makes paninis (sp?).

 
My family's Russian. :)

Though we act like total Australians.

At home we speak a mixture of Russian and English. Half a sentence in Russian, the other half in English. Russians have quite a few traditional foods, though we hardly ever eat them / make them. I guess you could say we're more like 'Russian Australians'. We usually eat something like lasagne, or pasta and a sausage, which you really wouldn't see much of in Russia whatsoever. But we drink a fair amount of tea, and people in Russia practically live on that stuff. :)

I don't know that many cultured families at all. Though some of our neighbours are Chinese and they have stuff like sushi for dinner, which I actually love. We also have some Dutch neighbours which are incredibly different from the usual Australians. They've transformed their front yard into a 'miniature Holland' with all these incredible windmills and statues of cows and stuff just standing there. They also have Dutch TV, all their souvenirs seem to be Dutch, and all they eat for dessert is 'Oliebollen', a fried Dutch puffy-dough-thing-with-sultanas.

It's quite fascinating that we're all human, yet pretty much have our own lives and none of us live it the same.

 
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One of my best friends is African..

Her house isn't that different, they eat a lot of food like couscous, special chicken and Arican traditional meals. Their whole family are like, these world class chefs. ;o

And they say grace at dinner, because they're.. Catholic or Christian? I don't know ): but a lot of people say grace.. so it's not really that 'special'

Othe than that they're pretty normal, I guess.. but she has like, thousands of cousins. (literally) Her dad's side of the family still lives in Africa, where it's normal to have many many children and marry a lot of men. It's kind of cool how she can't even name all of her relatives 8)

.. My household is like, pfff..... Dutch-Canadian ? I have no idea what kind of traditional things we could do, but we live like pretty normal people. And my parents are always working, so they're like "fix some of your own dinner.. there's Kraft Dinner and microwavable vegetables" and gross stuff like that.

And then you go to Ruthie (the african one)'s house and even her dog is eating gourmet xD

 
I don't know that many cultured families at all. Though some of our neighbours are Chinese and they have stuff like sushi for dinner, which I actually love.
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Chinese people don't eat sushi thats japanese.

Anyway my familiy is from thailand and um on school nights bed times is 10:00pm and on weekends 10:30 and on holidays some where beetween 11:00 and midnight. I eat rice and eggs with meat and veggies I don't have dessert. We also have thai tv and um my mun and dad talk in thai I don't but I can understand and we go to temples ecexpt thats because I am buddisht.And um search it

 
^ You write a lot of ummms. I don't have dessert either. Just half-eaten candy bars that my mom leaves in the freezer,
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I know I don't have dessrts Ijust eat what I find in the snack basket

 
Chinese people don't eat sushi thats japanese.
Anyway my familiy is from thailand and um on school nights bed times is 10:00pm and on weekends 10:30 and on holidays some where beetween 11:00 and midnight. I eat rice and eggs with meat and veggies I don't have dessert. We also have thai tv and um my mun and dad talk in thai I don't but I can understand and we go to temples ecexpt thats because I am buddisht.And um search it
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:D You're Thai.

You know we have to 'Sawasdee' everyone that's older, even if that person's your sister xD.

And we can't stand higher than our teachers. When we go to their desk, we have to sit on the floor.

And I'm a Buddhist too.

Edit; smiley fail.

 
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Chinese people don't eat sushi thats japanese.
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It's still what they eat for dinner, and other people around here don't, so I still consider it different and 'different cultured'. :)

 
My family on my father's side is 100% Italian, and on my mom's side there's Polish added into the mix. So I'm 87.5% Italian and 12.5% Polish, but since I live with people mainly from my father's side, with the exception of my mother, there is really only one Italian tradition we stick to - Grandma making homemade sauce on Sundays.

 
Wow Katie, That sounds like, really interesting O: Those kind of things interest me XD

My grandfather was 100% Italian. He didn't speak fluent Italian, but he knew a few words. I don't blame him though. He was like 80 years old and his parents passed away 50-40 years ago (So no one around him spoke Italian, is what I'm saying). I'm not sure what his parents spoke, but my grandfather seemed fluent in English, so I'm not too sure XD My grandma is Polish but she inherited some Italian traits as well. My grandma makes dinner every Sunday, usually pasta. Both my grandfather and grandmother would swear in Italian, which was pretty interesting. When I was little I had no idea what they were saying. My grandfather told me a few words in Italian, like glove, scarf, sock (I forget what they are though D:) He used to call me "Brutta Scimmia" Which he told me means "Funny monkey" I went into a translation site and that means "Ugly Monkey" in Italian. I'm not sure if he just didn't know or.. xD

All of his bothers names ended in "o" xD Gino, Nino, and His name Was Keno. He had like 9 siblings but I cannot remember all of their names. His moms name was so bizarre.. I can't remember it right now.

 
My mom makes Yorkshire pudding sometimes. Her roots are pretty much all British.

My dad grew up in a number of places: Washington, Germany, Australia, Panama.. So his culture is really random. His dad was some government official so they moved a lot. His parents are really strict and slightly cruel, I think that caused him to be really loose with me. I never get disciplined. Well, I don't get much attention at all, good or bad. I can take care of myself, so I often get left alone.

We're heavily effected by the number of kids we have, my mom is always busy with them, and they're completely Americanized xD Me and my dad are a bit more cultured. We drink tea, go to sushi bars, and eat my second favorite food-- Chicken Korma x3 And Butter Chicken. I lovelovelove Indian food.

 
My family is wacky.

My mum's Turkish, but she was born in Germany.

Seriously, I don't even consider myself Turkish.

We don't do anything cultural things, but we swear in Turkish :D

My dad's Italian, and he basically wants us to embrace the fact that I am too.

Although I don't want to.

We eat normal-people-food, except at my maternal grandparent's house.

All the time: Pasta, reeeeaallyy vinegary salad and FREAKING ITALIAN DESSERTS.

It isn't so much fun. But I consider myself Australia.

 
I'm Thai and i take off my shoes when i'm in my house. I eat all kinds of food and stuff, lol.

 
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