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Today on the way home from an errand, I passed a family playing football in their yard. They were all different colors, but it looked like one family. My first thought was, "Oh look, it's a multicultural family." Upon further reflection, however, I wondered if maybe they were just a multicolored family. No matter what skin color one has, what determines one's culture is the one one is raised in. (Wow, that was a weird sentence, doesn't one think?)
I thought about myself and realized that I am a multicultural person (the technical term is "third culture kid"; there is a lot out there about it--google it if you want). I was raised in one culture, and now I am raising my child in a different culture. I wonder if being multicultural is harder or easier. I guess I will never know, because I can't ever be one culture.
My formative years were spent in the country of Japan. I loved living there. When it comes down to it, I consider Japan to be "home". My family and I were there as missionaries, but the Japanese culture wasn't the only one that influenced my siblings and me. We were missionaries to the American military, so we also had a lot of Army-, Air Force-, and Navy-ness sprinkled in there (and Marine-ness, since my dad is a former Marine). Since one way to become a citizen of America is to serve in her military, there were also many Filipino families in our church. We also had a Scottish lady (and her half-Scottish kids) and a family from Peru. Just to name a few.
The Japanese culture is private and detached. You mind your business and I'll mind mine. That's why the bathroom windows look directly out onto the street. No one will look in and gawk as they walk past because what's going on inside is none of their business. That's also why hundreds and hundreds of people can be packed in so tightly on a train--so many people that you could literally pick both feet up off the ground and your body wouldn't move. You don't make eye contact and start a conversation with those strangers! You just look through them or past them or whatever and mind your own business.
Japanese culture is expectant and sometimes presumptuous. Everyone expects only the best from everyone else. The kids stay after school every day to learn more. Each generation has to do better than the one before. Many times, three or four generations will live in the same house, so the younger ones live with that expectation every day. If they don't measure up they feel as though there is no point in life.
Honoring the family name means everything. Watch the movie Mulan and you will glimpse this. (Even though the movie is set in China, the "honoring the family name" is the same as it is in Japan.) Getting into the best universities and making a lot of money signals success--and this tells people that the stock you come from is hardy, resilient, and will stop at nothing to be and do the best.
Stay tuned for part two, "Don't touch your mustache!" where I will draw correlations to American culture and how I raise my child here.
PS. I know you are wondering what 39 sticky rice cakes have to do with being multicultural. Well, when a Japanese person is first learning to speak English, the letters and sounds don't quite sound the same way they do as from a native English speaker. When a Japanese person learns to say "thank you very much", it comes out sounding like "sahn cue betta moche" instead. To roughly translate (as those are actual Japanese words!) he is telling you "san (3) cu (9) {very} mochi (sticky rice cakes)".
And now my mouth is watering and I am hungry...