Tag Archives: Taiwanese American

Happy Birthday sung in three languages

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Animation student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA / Queens, NY
Language: English

Text:

JC: “Okay, so um… for context, well you know this but my parents were originally from Taiwan, but my dad grew up in Costa Rica, so he’s picked up an understanding of Spanish. And in my family, we had this big group of like… in a lot of holiday celebrations, so like New Years or in the summer, we all tend to gather around and like, celebrate a specific holiday. And as a tradition we sing happy birthday first in English, ’cause everyone understands it, and then in Chinese to kind of like.. just for all the grandparents to understand, for them to join in, and for.. all of the like, Taiwanese people around. And then for the Costa Rican side, we end up singing it in Spanish.”

Context:

Informant JC is part of a multi-cultural and multi-lingual family. He added, “I always thought that was very interesting, like my family dynamic. I’m primarily Taiwanese-American, but we still ended up incorporating like a lot of Costa Rican cultural bits. There’s like, having Costa Rican food on the side, or being more open to Costa Rican culture. I also feel like because we’ve all like, grown up in America, like my parents moved when they were very young, and my relatives came in more progressively, and they’ve had to assimilate to American culture. A lot of what we end up doing feels very American.”

Analysis:

Happy Birthday songs are ritualized celebrations of the human life cycle, commemorating the completion of an approximate solar year since a person’s birth. They provide an opportunity for one’s community to get together and reaffirm their bonds with a person.

JC’s multilingual birthday ritual is especially significant in light of broader political changes. From 1949 to 2007, Costa Rica had diplomatic relations with Taiwan. After nearly 60 years, Costa Rica decided to break off this relationship in favor of establishing ties with China. Despite these shifting political alliances, JC’s family birthday ritual demonstrates that community bonds extend beyond the borders and interests of the nation-state.

Tang Yuan

Nationality: Taiwanese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Animation Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA / Queens, NY
Language: English

Text:

“One of the foods that we made is um.. Tang Yuan, which is like a… kind of like mochi? It’s like a glutinous rice ball and then on the inside is sesame paste. And so, it… it’s usually typically eaten during the New Year. Um… it’s just like kind of a dessert. I know it’s been more popularized within like, um… like, Taiwanese dessert places nowadays, or like dessert places in general, but they’re usually served as like a treat for introducing the New Year. Um… a while ago, like when I was really really young — I’d say like before I was five — my grandma used to make Tang Yuan by like… She didn’t have the sesame paste, it was just like flour balls, I guess? Like she’d make the sort of like, dough out of rice flour and water and then she’d dye it into different colors and like, cut it up into strips and then she’d have me and my cousins like prepare the dough balls together. And then she’d prepare a kind of uh, kind of soup, like a sweet soup to go with it. Um… I believe also typically… I prefer to eat it plain, but my dad um… My grandparents on my dad’s side — and my dad — they both kind of… they have like a somewhat Cantonese background, so they end up drinking it with like, this fermented wine, like rice wine. And it… has an ‘interesting’ taste, it’s like… it’s like the sweetness of the Tang Yuan on itself is pretty good, and it’s like, the fermented rice wine is very bitter, and very pungent…. and so it’s like, I don’t know how they acquired the taste for it but, um, my dad typically eats it with this sort of rice wine. And also, when you eat it… I think it represents currency. ’cause the ‘yuan’ at the end… and ‘tang’ is usually like ‘sweet.’ So like ‘sweet money.'”

Context:

Tang Yuan are a traditional Chinese dessert, although they can be sweet or savory. They are often made for holidays and festivals, especially the Lunar New Year. There are several variations on Tang Yuan recipes, but the most common one involves making a dough out of glutenous rice flour and water, stuffing the dough balls with a sweet black sesame paste, boiling, and serving warm in a sweet syrup. Tang Yuan are said to represent togetherness and completeness.

Analysis:

Dishes like Tang Yuan are often made for festivals to commemorate calendar cycles and bring people together. They represent connections to community and a sense of continuity of tradition and culture. For informant JC, Tang Yuan are a dish that holds significance beyond the process of cooking and eating — they play a role in connecting him to his Taiwanese identity as he and his family navigate American culture and expectations of assimilation.

Tomb visiting day in Taiwan

Nationality: Taiwanese/American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/22/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin Chinese

Background information:

My friend introduced me to a practice that he and his relatives often perform surrounding the celebration of his ancestors. He is of Taiwanese descent, as he was born in San Francisco, California and both of his parents were born in Taipei, Taiwan. His family moved to California since before he was born and have assimilated into the American lifestyle but still stay very true to their Taiwanese roots and take great pride in their Taiwanese culture.

 

Main piece:

My friend said that throughout his childhood and growing up, he would always celebrate his ancestors with his relatives. He explained that there is a special day in Taiwan where family members all get together and visit the tombs or graves of their ancestors. When they visit their ancestors, they do everything from pray to bring a large amount of food for both them as well as their ancestors to enjoy. He explained this as not being an event of sadness, but rather a celebration where family members are able to reconnect and bond over their unity in their family and eat traditional Taiwanese foods. He said that his family members come from all over Taiwan and therefore all of his family members travel to the location where their ancestors are buried, when they are celebrating this day, showing the importance that people place on this event and how crucial it is that everyone attends.

When I asked if there was any dish in particular that was popular for this event, he responded that fruit is very common to bring, along with other desserts such as red bean desserts and rice cakes, emphasizing that sweets are often preferred in his experience.

 

Personal thoughts:

Upon hearing this tradition, I felt that this was a fantastic way to celebrate relatives that have passed away because everyone in the family is joining in on this event, unifying the family a great deal. In addition to the unifying and memorable factors of this celebration, I feel that the great amounts of food definitely make this event even more successful, as I have always experienced that having food at events usually makes them vastly more successful and memorable.