一位华二代对中文学校的反思（英文版）

我的女儿璐璐写了一篇很长的文章，把美国华裔孩子与中文学校之间的“爱恨情仇”，描述得淋漓尽致。我真希望10年前的自己能够读到这篇文章，能够站在孩子们的角度来理解和处理关于中文学习这个问题。

她的文章不光是讲中文学校，还讲了关于华裔孩子们的身份认同，关于中美教育理念，关于个人和群体的成长和挣扎。

作为她的妈妈，读了之后，我自己都觉得受益匪浅，并且对这个女儿有了更深层的了解。

我把她的文章翻译并发表后，得到非常多的反馈。让我吃惊的是，很多中文学校的老师和管理人员也认同璐璐的观点。不到一天的时间，文章的阅读量已经超过一万人，有望追上璐璐视频的3万多点击量。

这篇文章是她在一天多的时间里写完的，完全是有感而发，是来自她内心真实的、坦诚的体验和思考。这不是一篇学术论文，而是来自一个孩子的宝贵视角。

中文版我删减了一些内容，而且由于时间匆忙，也没有在翻译上精雕细琢。现在我把璐璐的英文全文发表出来，分享给大家。

中文版（点击阅读全文）：一位华二代对中文学校的反思：让我们与自己的文化渐行渐远

英文版：Chinese Schools in America are Distancing Children from their Culture –

What Can Parents Do?

A perspective from a grown A.B.C (American Born Chinese) kid

Lulu Xu

PART I: INTRODUCTION

Just like my mother, Xin Luo, I enjoy sharing my thoughts and hobbies online to people. Recently, I posted a tiktok video that has gained 30k views. I was surprised– the topic of the video was something I thought was very specific, so I wasn’t sure if it was going to get any attention at all. Over 250 people made comments on it in under a week。

The topic of the video was about my experience with chinese school. How I felt as a kid, to how I feel now as a college student. I talked a lot about my dissatisfaction with how these schools are run and the way that they kill chinese kids’ interest in actually learning chinese and chinese culture. I talked about how much I regret not trying harder in chinese school now, how I wish everything I learned stuck better with me.

I was happy to see that over 200 people shared my experience. I already knew I wasn’t the only one who hated chinese school– many of my highschool friends share the same sentiment. But to see that the video went beyond my small bubble and that Chinese kids all over America could relate to this specific experience was very vindicating.

Before I go on to talk about my thoughts, let me share with you some of these comments:

“I was a Straight A student in regular school, but basically failed out of Chinese school”

“I hated chinese school so much, and now I do not feel chinese enough at all”

“I hated going to Chinese school every saturday at 9am… it was so tiring. But now I wish I could write and read”

“This is so real! Assigned homework EVERY DAY, the projects and presentations never got students to care for the language or culture”

“I cried my way out of chinese school, but my consequences are now not understanding a word of mandarin”

“I did remember when I went to Chinese school and I did not like it, and was wondering when I was ever going to use it. I stopped caring about learning Chinese at the time”

“THAT’S ME! I HATED IT! But now I wish I paid more attention! All they needed was to send us to China / Taiwan for a year, sheesh”

“I made some great friends through this misery. Learned the most chinese through TV, music, and friends”

“You know what helped me love Chinese. Chinese dramas from a young age!”

“It felt so unfair that I had to spend part of my weekend at more school.”

“My parents have to force me to do it and have been doing it for 7 years, and still can’t get it and hate chinese school”

“Also when I think that when we were younger, being Chinese was just seen as uncool. Like being perceived as someone who was connected to China just wasn’t appealing for me”

“I got wacked because I got the tones wrong and didn’t memorize strokes right”

“It was very poorly taught and we hated waking up early on Saturday morning to go! We’re all overachievers at regular school but nobody put effort in for chinese school”

“My chinese did not improve at all during chinese school, because why would I go around reciting poems to people? It definitely improved when I started watching Cdramas and variety shows”

“I would kick and scream to avoid going to Sunday Chinese school”

“I never understood why it’s taught in CHINESE. How do I learn Chinese when I can’t understand you?

“Watching Journey to the West was the only time I learned Chinese”

“I’m 58 years old. I can relate. I didn’t like going to Chinese school every saturday morning for 3 hours. Back then that was prime time for cartoons and I had to miss it.”

“Relatable! I just thought I sucked at chinese, and then I took it in college and realized I liked it!!!”

Those were comments from people like me– kids who grew up in America attending Chinese school. What surprised me also was some parents saw my tiktok as well and commented.

“As a dad with two ABC toddlers, I hope there’s a better way now.”

“I’m a Chinese Mom, my kids are 5 and 7, I have no intention to force them to learn my first language, they can learn when themselves want to”

“LOL, I’ve been telling my wife this because she makes our kid go to Chinese school.”

“Total waste of time. The moment my daughter said no to Chinese school, I totally agreed with her and took her out.”

“Good rant. The thing is the people that run Chinese schools have not gone to school in the U.S. so they only know how school is run in China”

“Agreed. The schools are bad. I have 1:1 tutor for my girl”

PART II: THE PROBLEM

To every Chinese parent in America right now who’s raising their own kids, if you care about them connecting with their roots, you should be concerned with how Chinese school is teaching them. To me, my friends, and many of these commenters, Chinese school not only failed to properly teach us Chinese in a meaningful, long lasting way, but it also turned many kids against their own culture.

I’ve always been a good student– same with all of my highschool friends. I found English and reading to be incredibly easy when I was young. It might be because my mother took me to the library often, but I was able to read a book every week in elementary school. I loved to write in English and my biggest dream in 5th grade was to become an author.

I loved how natural English came to me, and so learning Chinese was a total pain. The alphabet has 26 letters from A to Z, why are there thousands of characters in Mandarin?? Why is Chinese grammar so different from English? How am I supposed to memorize all of this?

Don’t forget– we were kids. We were twelve years old, ten years old, eight years old. We didn’t have a good understanding of the world, of our own identities. All we understood was that English was easy, but Chinese was very difficult. All we understood was that our parents didn’t like that our Chinese was so bad.

All we understood was that there were two worlds: our “regular” world, where we go to “regular” school with our “regular” teachers, play with our friends during recess, go on playdates with classmates, read in our bed, watch cartoons, and do homework in the living room.

Then, there’s our “chinese” world. Our “chinese” world was our parents getting frustrated with us because our Chinese grammar was poor. Our “chinese” world was having to wake up at 8am every sunday morning to go to chinese school, where a teacher would lecture us and scold us if we didn’t study hard enough or do our homework well enough during the week. Our “chinese” world was us having 6 school days when other kids had 5. Our “chinese” world was boring idioms, poems, stories that didn’t interest us at all. Our “chinese” world was learning characters and phrases that we had no interest or intention of actually using with our parents. Because we were 10. What could you possibly have to say to your parents in Chinese when you’re 10 besides “I’m hungry” or “five more minutes”?

Why would any child want to engage with that world? What kind of child would prefer that world to their “regular” life? What kind of child would want to be stuck in a world where they always feel like they’re lacking, always feel like they’re behind, always feel like they’re not enough?

If this sounds too harsh, like I’m not being “appreciative” enough of my Chinese identity, please reconsider. As a 19 year old in college, I do feel ashamed of how weak my reading and writing in Chinese is. I would absolutely like to go back to China. I want to be connected to other Chinese teens and pop culture. I want to be able to read novels in Chinese, understand Cdramas without subtitles. I want to talk to my parents and relatives perfectly and be able to make jokes to my Chinese peers. Many of my classmates in college have the same feelings. Everyone is proud to be Chinese, everyone is proud to share that culture. Our Chinese identity is important to us now. But it wasn’t important to us when we were 10 years old.

Here’s what was truly important to us when we were children:

• Watching cartoons

• Sleeping over at a friends’ house

• Being the best in sports

• Reading good books

• Playing video games

• Drawing

• Approval from our elementary school teachers

• Getting a puppy

• Presents on our birthday

• Snow days

  
  

This is no surprise, right? Children are children. They can be very simple with their wants and desires. So it should be even more obvious why kids don’t care about Chinese school.

To summarize, here is every reason I can come up with why your child dislikes chinese school– I used the tiktok comments I received to help create these points:

• They hate that they’re spending another day in school when it should be a weekend

• They’re frustrated that they can’t understand their teachers

• They never feel internally rewarded– even if teachers hand out “prizes” to students who score the highest, shouldn’t kids feel internally satisfied from learning a new language?

• They don’t see a point in learning a language that they don’t use anywhere except with their parents– and their parents are probably going to critique them and scold them if their chinese isn’t good enough yet

• They hate having to spend hours at the kitchen table on saturday night studying for the weekly quiz

• There’s just too much to memorize and no way to productively memorize it besides reciting it over and over again (the most boring study method) (that does not help with long-term memory)

• They think the stories and idioms are boring and aren’t useful at all

• The teachers are colder and punish students

• Chinese itself is a difficult language to learn and it’s easy to forget every character you’ve learned if you don’t use it everyday

• The teaching style is too foreign, too boring, too mature for children who best learn through active, engaging, fun teaching

• The textbooks are unhelpful and difficult to understand– if the child’s primary language is English, how are they supposed to learn Chinese without English?

• They think chinese culture is boring and old because they think that their parents are boring and old

• There are no projects or assignments that are fun for the students

• Spending a morning in chinese school means losing hours that could be time to read your favorite book, watch Sunday cartoons, play sports with your friends, play video games or do homework

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“Well, don’t kids in China go through these struggles? Don’t kids in China also have these hardships when it comes to learning English?” The answer: YES! And maybe they shouldn’t have these struggles either! I’m only focusing on my personal experience as an ABC learning Chinese, a language that isn’t popular in the United States. English is a predominant language around the world. It makes sense that children in China learn it from a young age. Not to mention that English is a core class in most Chinese schools– it’s just not the same experience that ABCs have with Saturday / Sunday Chinese school.

No matter what you’re feeling right now, you do have to admit that there’s a problem. I truly believe though, that the problem isn’t about the children– It’s about their environment. Kids love learning. Kids love asking questions, searching the internet, exploring and playing outside, building new creations with Legos, and reading and writing. Kids have their own interests and passions and goals, and learning something that relates to what they care about makes them feel internally satisfied, rewarded, wiser. Parents, please don’t give up on your child just because their passions or interests aren’t interesting to you. Let your children learn and grow in the ways they want. Show children why things matter.

So, the question is: How do we make our kids care about learning Chinese? How do we make our kids realize the value in Chinese culture?

PART III: THE SOLUTION (for parents)

There’s no one answer for how to make your child suddenly care about their Chinese culture. “Culture” itself is not a one-time experience. Of course, sending your child to China for the summer is an option, but I do think it’s really important to consider your child’s outlook on culture and language. Are kids having fun with learning Chinese culture? Are they having fun learning the language?

Your first instinct may be to say “it shouldn’t matter if it’s ‘fun’. It’s still important.’”

And you’re right. But of course, kids don’t see it that way. If you want your child to grow up without resenting you, or resenting their Chinese identity, parents and schools need to introduce and teach Chinese culture in better ways. So what can we do?

The first thing you need to be conscious of is how your ABC child understands “chinese” and “being chinese” as a concept. If you’re the only person that your child is speaking Chinese to, that already has an impact on the way they view “chinese”. They already feel a disconnect from speaking English to their friends, watching English cartoons, learning math and history in English, and then talking to you in chinese.

If you talk to your child in English, and then use Chinese when you’re scolding them, punishing them, or yelling at them, do you see how that already impacts the way they view the language from such a young age?

If your child’s “English” experiences are with friends, in school, at clubs, and at the library, but then their “Chinese” experiences are at boring adult family friend dinner parties and boring Chinese school, don’t you see how you’ve already implanted a “separation” in your child’s mind of what’s engaging and what’s boring?

If you take away your child’s playtime or cartoon show time, and then shove a foreign, confusing textbook in their face that makes no sense to them, you are not connecting your child with their culture. You are disconnecting them from it.

The solution of “40 minutes of Chinese studying and then you can go have your free time” is not good enough. Kids need to be interested enough that their free time involves them engaging with their culture. The “I’ll just bear through this boring studying and then I can run away from it” is not the way to get kids to take an interest in their culture. Kids should feel compelled to run towards it.

Here are some small solutions that I think could potentially help– these are things I believe would have made a difference if I was a child:

• If your child has an interest in reading, give your children Chinese books that have been translated into English. Giving your child a book written in Chinese, with 70% of the characters being unreadable for them, will not make them want to read it. And make sure these Chinese books are books your child actually wants to read– let them read fun sci-fi books! Let your teen daughter read a sappy romance story. Let your son read an adventure novel. Let them realize themselves that Chinese media and literature are interesting and modern. They will get to enjoy a story, while learning a bit more about Chinese culture through the story, while also internalizing the idea that “Chinese” is worth engaging with. Cut back on the ancient poems and idioms that they won’t remember (unless your child has a passion for poetry) and show the modern works that Chinese authors are writing for teens and kids. Introduce them to online novels. Show that you care about their interests by giving them books you think they’d like based on their bookshelf.

  
  

• Similarly, give your children books written by Chinese American authors. Here’s an example: “Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor” by Xiran Jay Zhao. Many Chinese American authors write stories that are specifically meant for ABC kids to engage with Chinese culture. They speak to the Chinese American experience all the while showing children how fun Chinese culture, like its legends and myths, is.

  
  

  

• The same goes for TV shows and movies. Make sure they have subtitles, especially if your child is at a point where English has become their primary language. Yes, your child is still learning Chinese even if the shows and movies have subtitles– in fact, your child is learning MORE Chinese with subtitles than if there were no subtitles. Look into what kids in China are watching and loving. I’m sure I would have really loved Nezha (2019) if I was a kid.

• Don’t get frustrated that your child’s Chinese isn’t perfect. They can tell that you’re disappointed in them, and it only makes them feel worse. The reality is that an ABC child’s English will almost always be better than their Chinese. The goal isn’t for your child to be fluent in Chinese by the time that they’re 15. The goal is for your child to be so interested in Chinese that they’re willing to continue improving and learning for the rest of their lives.

• Of course, you can help correct your child’s language. If a child’s using incorrect grammar, you can gently guide them to using the correct grammar. But don’t forget that it can’t only be about correcting, scolding, or teaching. Kids get insecure! Validate them and show them that you acknowledge their struggles, and praise them when they are using correct grammar, when they are using a new vocabulary word in their sentence

• Don’t get frustrated if your kid doesn’t “understand it” yet. Don’t get frustrated if your kid doesn’t seem interested in Chinese yet, or doesn’t see the appeal of Chinese culture yet. Kids don’t come out of the womb understanding how culture, language, ethnicity, race, country, heritage, immigration, identity works. Most kids won’t understand the value of their racial identity until they're in middle school or high school, or even beyond. Be patient and encouraging, and show enthusiasm in the moments they do seem interested.

• Acknowledge your child’s strengths and knowledge, and please don’t forget that their lack of knowledge in Chinese culture, language, history, etc. does not mean they are generally lacking in knowledge. Don’t be angry that your 10-year-old son can’t read a picture book in Chinese– he’s reading full-length novels in English. Don’t be angry that your daughter only knows 50 chinese characters– she knows 500 english words. Reminding your child that they ARE smart and CAN learn this and that will make them so much more motivated to try learning chinese.

• Use your child’s interests to show them Chinese culture. For example, if you see that your teenager is interested in fashion design, show them the newest fashion runway looks in China. If your kid likes studying history, show them how expansive and detailed Chinese history is. If your kids like baking, why not do a baking night where you all bake chinese treats / desserts? Even if you think your kids' interests are “useless”, like video games, why not buy them games that are set in China, or that are made by Chinese developers to play? If your kid likes anime, show them donghua, if they like manga, show them manhua. If your daughter likes Kpop, show your daughter Cpop, or even introduce your daughter to Kpop idols that are Chinese. (Of course, I acknowledge that this idea is good in theory, but hard to implement in practice. Your kid will inevitably have interests you just can’t understand or relate to, and that’s okay. Give them the space to do the things they enjoy!)

• Encourage your child to be in diverse environments / have diverse friends. Sure, it’s one thing for Chinese children to be together, but I found that growing up with a lot of Korean friends made me openly aware of the small differences and similarities between our two cultures. The smallest conversations of what dishes we’d usually eat at home, or what household traditions we had, made us aware of the nuances between our two identities. And now, as a college student with an even more diverse friend group, I’ve found a great appreciation for a variety of cultures, but also my own. Positive social interactions are a great way for children to be introduced to the concept of “identity”, and it could help with their understanding of their place in their world.

• Let your kids participate in cultural traditions. These are the things your child will fondly look back on. Let them help make food, hang up the red lanterns, decorate the house, or dress up.

• Combat the stereotypes or negative things your child might be hearing in school. Here are some common ones that many peers of my generation have heard:

• “Don’t you all eat dogs?”

• “Your language (Mandarin) sounds weird”

• “Your food smells weird”

• “Your eyes are so small / weird”

• “Didn’t you start COVID?”

• “Aren’t all Asians good at math?”

These sayings can easily lead a child into feeling insecure over their identity. For many growing up, this can make them feel insecure or ashamed of their appearance. Some may feel ashamed to bring their food to school, and others may feel afraid of their own culture (ie. “eating dogs” or “starting COVID”), and will thus feel afraid of connecting with it.

Encourage your child to bring up things that have hurt them or made them feel uncomfortable. Help teach them that these stereotypes are harmful, and that one kid’s bigoted perspective is not the truth of the matter.

Many ABC children internalize these stereotypes, and later go on to perpetuate them. I’ve seen many of my Chinese classmates in middle school and high school make fun of themselves for laughs– but there’s nothing funny about mocking our own cultures.

• Finally, remind your child that they are Chinese. This may seem obvious to you, but it might not be for them. Many ABC children struggle with understanding whether they’re American or Chinese, whether they’re western or asian. Many will feel like they’re “not Chinese enough” because they can’t speak the language well or because they live in the States. Affirming to them that they are Chinese will make them feel more validated and will make them feel more encouraged to participate in Chinese culture.

PART IV: FINAL THOUGHTS

I’m at an awkward point in my life where I still have many ties to my childhood, but at the same time I have taken on many more responsibilities of adulthood. I recognize how impossible it is to perfectly parent your children. I see the toll it takes on parents, and I recognize the hardships you’ve gone through to give your children a good life, home, and education. At the same time, having been a child not so long ago, I also recognize the disconnect many immigrant children feel from their parents, their identity, and their culture. Being a child is confusing! All these adults have these expectations of you and you’re not really sure you understand why.

As someone who has reached “adulthood” (partially), I’m here to tell you that your kid will figure it out. Eventually. They’ll care, eventually. They’ll be proud of their Chinese identity, eventually. They’ll have a drive to engage with Chinese culture, eventually. One day, they’ll be 19 and they’ll realize why they felt so different from their peers in public school. They’ll realize what you were trying to do when you sent them to chinese school.

There’s nothing easy or simple about all of this. Remember that kids can be delicate– something you say without thinking will be something that they’ll repeat in their minds for years and years. So if you’ve read this article to this point and you got something meaningful out of it, I’d like to thank you.

You don’t need to shove Chinese culture down your child’s throat. You don’t need to “prove” to them that Chinese culture is beautiful, or interesting, or worthwhile. It already is– I see that now. And your child will recognize that eventually. You can gently guide them towards that realization, but even if you don’t, they’ll one day want to seek it for themselves.

What I think some chinese parents don’t understand about their ABC children is that choosing to indulge in your identity and your culture in America is a choice. A Chinese kid in China does not need to actively engage themselves in Chinese culture; they’ve grown up in it and are surrounded by it. It’s very different for ABC kids. Your classmates are white, the history you learn is about the United States, and the world you live in is incredibly western.

So when you see your ABC child choosing to attend an Asian-American event, choosing to become a member of a Chinese-Student Association, choosing to wear traditional chinese clothes for ceremonies, choosing to watch Cdramas, choosing to read books by Chinese authors, choosing to speak to you or their grandparents in Chinese, even if their grammar is broken and their pronunciation is poor, recognize that they’re trying. See that they’re motivated, and that they care.

You may feel frustrated with your child who currently doesn’t appreciate the culture you yourself grew up in. I feel the need to remind you that they’re not “ungrateful, unappreciative, spoiled, lazy brats”, but that they’re literally just children who need positive things to motivate them. It’s not the American method to punish your children constantly, to push them to work harder, to scold them whenever they do something wrong. Even if this is the reality for Chinese children, you can’t productively enforce those same methods onto your child who's growing up in the States. You can try, but heed my word of caution that they may grow up feeling more resentful of their Chinese identity than appreciative.

Here’s one more thought: my Chinese friends who really really hated Chinese school later went on to take high school and college courses in Mandarin. They all loved it! They loved their teachers, they loved getting involved with the culture via projects, and most of all they felt like they were finally “healthily” reconnecting with the language that Chinese school made them hate.

This is proof that Chinese schools are, at the moment, not successfully teaching kids Chinese.

However, it’s also proof that they can.

Is it because these high school / college courses implement “western” teaching methods? Is it because kids learn better when they have multiple classes a week rather than just one per week? Is it because there’s less stress to already be fluent in Chinese in these courses? Again, I can’t give you an answer. But hopefully, I’ve given you some things to consider and care about.

I can’t tell you whether or not you should keep making your child go to Chinese school. I don’t believe I’m in a position to say what the schools should and shouldn’t be doing to help the children learn, even if I have ideas. Maybe I’m not even in a position to be speaking to the Chinese parents reading this article. But I do really hope my thoughts give you a fresh perspective you don’t usually hear.

Thank you to my mom for translating my words for me– one day, I can hopefully translate them myself!

中文版请点击链接：一位华二代对中文学校的反思：让我们与自己的文化渐行渐远