We ABCs don't know jack about being Chinese

Don't trust what we Chinese Americans have to say about the Chinese culture. We don't do this on purpose because we really do believe we have it all straight in our heads. At best, we are only partially correct with the facts, but for the most part we are just plain wrong.

The conduit to the motherland's history and culture are through the kaleidoscope of our parents or our real Chinese friends. Dude, if that doesn't raise red flags for you, you're either high or you have the IQ of a peanut. The truth is most of these folks, with a few rare exceptions, should not be giving us ABCs lessons on Chinese culture. Here's why...

Many Chinese parents left the motherland a while ago, probably before the Cultural Revolution so their facts are wildly out-of-date. Most real Chinese folks consider our parents as relics of the "old culture". They say stuff like, "Oh, how cute, they still do that". That's a polite translation of, "Dude that's so pre 1900s. In China, such things have gone the way of the dodo bird". Yes, real Chinese folks talk like this - I know this (Remember I'm Chinese American).

Our real Chinese friends can't be trusted either because they will never tell you the whole story because they think of us as a great novelty act. Novelty act in the sense that they want us to be the presenter in a meeting with our fly unzipped. They want to embarrass us. They want to make us look retarded. They will constantly feed us bits and pieces of real information followed by disinformation so that they can continue to make fun of us. It's sweet revenge for them because we ABCs will never forgo a chance to make fun of their Chinese accent when they speak English and if we fail to find a way to insult them, we'll just resort to calling them FOBs. We so deserve the wrath of real Chinese folks.

You might being wondering why we ABCs can't just go figure it out ourselves. We cannot. We cannot just watch CCTV (China Central Television) and learn this stuff on our own because our understanding of the Chinese language is about the level of a 3 year old so there's no way in hell we understand what the folks on CCTV are talking about. We have no choice but to depend on our parents and our real Chinese friends. So in the end, we Chinese Americans are left to our own devices knowing only bits and pieces of our own culture and then piecing it together with our American thought process.

We. Are. Screwed.

And to all Eggs and admirers of Chinese culture, consider this a WARNING. If what you know about Chinese culture is from Chinese Americans, you don't know jack about Chinese culture.