Growing up in a Chinese household, I was taught to recognize Chinese characters at very young age. I remember vividly the walls being covered in Chinese characters that my mom put up for me to recognize. Interesting, she would put them in places that would relate to what I was doing. For example, she would put the Chinese character for up, “上”, at the bottom of the stairs so that every time I would be going up the stairs, I could associate that character with the directions. And of course, in the kitchen, the refrigerator would be covered in characters too that were related to stuff that was found in the kitchen such as chopsticks, spoon, fork, etc. Gradually, I began to pick up on more and more Chinese characters and was eventually able to read Chinese. It was around this time that the question of “where did Chinese characters come from?” began to form in my head. I finally asked my mom and she told me that Chinese characters are also called “pictograms” since they are originally pictorial depictions of the the actual event that is occurring. I know, this sounds extremely confusing. I started back blankly at her too at the time. I’ll give a few examples.

In the above picture is how the word “rest” came to be. When the character was first created thousands of years ago in China, someone saw another person sitting under a tree resting. and so he tried to draw that scene. Over time, his drawing became the character for the meaning “rest” or “休”.

Here is an example for how the character for “turtle” came to be. It gradually evolved from a mere drawing to an actual word in language over time.

However, the Chinese characters that is seen and taught today are know as simplified Chinese characters that are transformed from the original traditional Chinese characters that were widely used and taught. This trend begin to happen during Mao Zhe Dong’s rule in China. He had the traditional characters to become even more simplified to help promote literacy in the country. His method did work and the literal in China began to increase rapidly. Sadly, everything comes with a price. By simplifying the traditional characters, some of the original meaning of the word becomes lost. Like how I explained it earlier, each Chinese character has a story and by simplifying the character, the story is lost. 

The bolded character to the right is what Chinese uses today for the character “turtle” while the one to its left is the traditional form of the character. The simplified version of the character no longer has the same presence as the traditional character. It is now void of all it’s deeper meaning and history.

Many people today argue that traditional Chinese characters should be eliminated since they are no longer necessary. However, I think the opposite. Traditional Chinese characters are the heart of Chinese culture. These are the characters that have been passed down for thousands of years and the history of China is written with these characters. My great- uncle who is a big advocate of traditional Chinese characters and he once had this discussion with someone who thought the opposite. My great- uncle pointed out that traditional Chinese characters are not only words but they are also a form of art. Chinese calligraphists will buy expensive, fine-quality paper, just to “paint” these beautiful words onto them. Even thought they may be easier to write, simplified Chinese characters will never be able to compare with the beauty that traditional Chinese characters contain.

Examples of Chinese Calligraphy:

Many of us grew up hearing stories about many different kinds of legends and myths. Depending on the type of legend or myths, we were unknowingly learning about a kind of mythology. Greek and Roman Mythology were to the two most popular mythologies taught in schools. Every one of us are familiar with the names of the Greek and Roman gods and heroes such as Zeus, Mars, Perseus, Hercules, etc. These figures are frequently used in literature as allusions. However, one kind of mythology that is not well known is Chinese mythology. Like the other kinds of mythology Chinese mythology is also filled with fun stories where some also contain great morals. These are the stories that I grew up with as a child.

Legend of the Time of the Ten Suns

According to Chinese legends, a long time ago there were ten suns in the sky. These suns were said to take form as three legged birds called “sun birds”. Each of these sun birds would take turns to fly high into the sky. Eventually, the ten birds became tired their routine and decided to rise all at the same time. Sadly, because of their decision, the earth became overheated and all the agriculture died causing chaos for the Earth’s inhabitants. Finally, the King of the Heavens took notice of this problem and sent the talented archer, Houyi, to shoot down the suns and return peace to the mortal world. Houyi obeyed his orders and shot down nine of the ten sun birds, returning the land to its normal order.

Chang Er’s Ascent to the Moon

This legend is an extension of the Legend of the Time of the Ten Suns and tells the story of what happened afterwards. Houyi and his wife Chang Er are both immortal beings that lived in the sky in the Sky Palace. However, when Houyi killed the nine suns, he angered Dijin, Lord of the Eastern Skies, who was the father of these nine suns. Therefore, Houyi and his wife Chang Er were banished from the heavens into the mortal world. At first, the couple was interested in everything the mortal world offered but then gradually realized that they were now mortals themselves and would one day grow old and die like any other mortal. In search of immortality, Houyi eventually ended up at the palace of Xi Wang Mu, Queen Mother of the West and she sympathized with Houyi and Chang Er’s experience. She took pity on Houyi and gave him a bottle of immortality elixir and warned him that this was the last bottle she had. He was to share this bottle with his wife, Chang Er and they would then be able to return to their home in the heavens. Houyi and Chang Er agreed that on New Year’s Eve, they would each drink half of the elixir and return home. Finally, the night of New Year’s Eve arrives and Chang Er is at home waiting for Houyi to return. She waits and waits and he does not appear. Out of desperation, Chang Er drinks the entire bottle of elixir just as Houyi walks into the door and witness her slowing flying out of the window. Chang Er sees Houyi and immediately regrets her choice. She feels ashamed and no longer desires to return to her home in the heavens and so she turns and ascends to the moon.

These are just two legends out of the many Chinese legends and myths. The two legends previously mentioned are two of the more famous ones out of all the legends. Of these two legends, which one did you enjoy more?

I love Chinese food. Period.

Ever since I was in elementary school I would frequently pack my lunch to school. My mom would pack me all kinds of delicious stuff such as fried rice, noodles, dumplings (my favorite!), sticky rice buns (粽子), and rice. With rice, my mom would then make me different kids of dishes that went with it. For example, I would have fish, stir-fried beef/pork, etc. I really liked my lunch warm so I used a thermos style lunch box (more like cylinder) that looks something like this:

The rice would be on the bottom and I would have three dishes to eat with the rice. You can probably tell by now that I absolutely LOVED lunchtime. Sadly, no every appreciated the foods that I liked to eat. I clearly remember in elementary school I would always sit by myself and eat my lunch alone since if anyone sat next to me, all I would hear the entire lunch period would be things like, “What is that smell???” or “Is that stuff actually good?” or even “What in the world are you eating?”. I think I was too naive to actually have my feelings hurt. My mom always told me that people are different and that the kids around me are too young and immature to understand these differences. I didn’t really care much at the time. I was just happy to be eating such good food.

Once I hit middle school, it was when things got a little better during lunchtime. I became really good friends with this girl who liked Asian food and we would always share my dumplings whenever I packed them. Then one day my mom decides to pack me Mala Tofu Fish. This is a dish with fish filets, tofu, bean paste, and Szechwan chili peppers all drenched in red hot spicy oil. If you order this dish in a Chinese restaurant, it would look like this:

It is EXTREMELY spicy but it is so good. I highly recommend it if you are a fan of spicy foods! Anyways, that was one of the dishes I had for lunch one day in sixth grade.

That day, I sat down near the head of a long lunch table where I usually sit. I opened my lunch and began to place them on the table when a girl sits down at the table next to mine and begins to eye my lunch suspiciously. Even though I noticed her confused look, I chose to ignore her and sat down to enjoy my delicious lunch. About halfway into lunchtime, I was having a funny conversation with my friends when that girl sitting at the table next to me could no longer suppress her curiosity. Finally she asked,

          “Lillian, what are you eating?”

By middle school, I was tired of explaining what I was eating. The person who asks the questions always does not seem satisfy with the answer I give them. If I tell them, “It’s pork” the next questions would be, “What kind of pork? What is that sauce that’s on it?”. Then I would have to spend the majority of lunchtime just explaining my lunch. I decided by middle school that I was not going to waste my precious minutes explaining my food when I could be eating it. So I said,

        “My lunch.”

She didn’t give up and repeated herself,

        “No, what exactly are you eating?”

        “My lunch.”

The girl asked two more times before the boy sitting next was so frustrated and said loudly to her,

        “She’s eating her lunch! Let her eat in peace!”

I laughed for so long when I told my friend this story later during class since she missed it because she was in another lunch period.

To this day, I still do not care what others think about the food I am eating. Gradually, I found more friends that would actually join me and enjoy the food that we both like to eat.  Now that I look back at it, I am really amazed that I didn’t stop bringing lunch to school all together. I’ve spoke to other ABCs and Asian-Americans who had similar lunchtime experiences like I did so they all stopped bringing lunch to school. Now I am very surprised at myself that i did not do the same. Things like this happen to many people around us on a daily basis but most of the time we do not notice. Have you ever experience something like this? A time when you felt proud of what you were doing but the people around you thought it was weird. Please leave your thoughts in the comments below! 😀