Where do Chinese ex pats hang out?

[miaomiao]

I've been perusing this site for several weeks. Its great. A good resource for adults learning Chinese. However, I would like to find a place where Chinese people outside of China hang out, specifically Chinese people with kids. Being Chinese and raising kids outside of China is unique and I would like to find a group of others similar to myself. Anyone have any ideas where I might go?

[querido]

I just started a thread about ping-pong clubs. 

 

Also, whether or not you're interested in a school, an old post of mine told of how I made an important connection to the local Chinese community:

"About a year ago I discovered by googling around (didn't really expect it for some reason) a Chinese School for children in my town. A link from there took me to the...

"[mytown] Chinese Association". Check it out (google): Miami Overseas Chinese Association; North Houston Chinese Association; etc.

...then, I finally composed an email introducing myself, my motives, study history, situation, etc., sent it to the Association, and they kindly forwarded it to their mailing list! I've had four contacts so far. One is my tutor and one more is also promising."

 

QQ and WeChat etc. can help you find locals. You could ask them!

[Nathan Mao]

Where are you?

 

The hangouts are different in New York vs DC vs Hawaii.

 

 

But to be honest, in my experience, it seems like 1st Generation mainland immigrants don't really like to hang out with other Chinese people.  

After thinking about it quite a while, I think it stems from two things:

1) In Chinese society, family is most important, not the individual.  So when they come to the US, they are separated from family but don't have the western notion of replacing family with acquaintances who eventually become friends.  I'm beginning to get the sense that many mainland Chinese people don't know how to develop a friendship, because in Chinese society, your relationships are defined more by family and environment than by individual choice.

2) Lack of trust.  In mainland China, everything is about 关系， i.e., connections.  Everyone in China uses connections to get what they want, if they don't have the ability to get it themselves.  So when they get to the US, they don't want to be used for their connections or advantages, so when they meet someone else from China, they assume the attempt at friendship is an attempt to cultivate 关系 for exploitation.

 

Anyway, that's just a theory and there may be many 1st generation immigrants who can set the record straight.

 

Aside from that, I think the best way to find Chinese people hanging out together is through a Chinese-language church.  In all my years of studying Chinese, that is the one area I've seen Chinese people actually have a stable society within the US.

 

2nd best ways might be finding a Tai Chi class or chatting with people at the local Chinese restaurant and asking them where they hang out.

[miaomiao]

That's great you got connected querido! I guess I wasn't clear since I was thinking about finding an online community. nathan mao you hit the nail pretty good since i am really not that interested in hanging out with chinese people in person. We had the chance to go to a Chinese church but I didn't want to. I preferred the American church. Some parts of Chinese culture I don't like, but I think an online community of parents would be helpful. I haven't really wanted to find something on QQ because then it's so restricted and has limited access to non Chinese people.

[miaomiao]

Oh yeah and I'm from Houston, but that doesn't really matter since I'm looking for an online community

[Nathan Mao]

@miaomiao, are you 1st generation immigrant? I somehow got the impression you were an adult learner of Chinese...

[miaomiao]

Yes I am Chinese and my husband is American

[Nathan Mao]

huh. Your English is flawless, so I just assumed...

 

I don't know of any place Chinese people "hang out" online.  My wife chats mostly with her family.  She reads blogs but doesn't participate.  

 

Actually, now that I think about it, my ex-wife had a few bulletin boards she hung out on, but I have no idea what they were called or how to find them.

 

Sorry, I'm actually being worse than useless. ;)

[Meng Lelan]

Are you still in Houston right now? I go there a lot for kungfu class. A lot of parents sign up their kids for kungfu or sign themselves up for taiji, when the kids are taking class a lot of parents chat each other up in the observation area where they can watch the kids take class. Same thing for Chinese weekend schools. Usually the mothers and grandmas chat each other up while the guys either surf online on their cell phones or iPads or nap. Usually the guys nap.  I don't really know anything about online communities though.

[miaomiao]

Still in Houston now. But not interested in Chinese schools. Is kung fun expensive?

[Lu]

Miaomiao, perhaps you already did this, but have you tried googling (Baidu-ing) in Chinese? Or perhaps you can search for facebook groups? Your situation is one that is very suitable for online discussion, as many mothers will be in your situation but not always close to each other.

[Meng Lelan]

The cost of kungfu, it depends on where you go and how often and so forth. If you want me to recommend a kung fu school for kids you can private message me. 

 

I was wondering why you aren't interested in Chinese schools? Is it the expense or something else?

[Vivi MENG]

。。。。。。well, I don't know, maybe Chinese restaurant? Friends' home? KTV? 

[Meng Lelan]

I know there are one or two fairly large Mandarin immersion elementary public schools in Houston, maybe you can find friends there. Some parents there are Chinese with kids, but not all of them are Chinese. 

[miaomiao]

Haven't tried searching in Chinese yet. Sounds funny but I was hoping to find it English so there will be westerners in the group too.

We partly worry about the cost for mandarin schools and also we don't want to push it too hard and make the kids hate Chinese. We have friends who put kids in Chinese school and Chinese became not fun for them. But our oldest is only 4 so we are thinking now that he is young enough where any sort of school is still fun. So we are not sure yet about Chinese schools yet. The cost is an issue though.

[imron]

We have friends who put kids in Chinese school and Chinese became not fun for them.

This has overwhelmingly been the reaction I see from children who attend Chinese school past the age of say 5-6.  They start to resent Chinese for taking away their weekends and free time.

[Nathan Mao]

According to my experience and observation:

 

Kids will speak what their friends speak.  (the only real exception is if they must communicate with grandparents who do not speak the same language as the kids' friends).

 

All the different anecdotes would take too long to fully explain, but children really cannot choose what language to speak.  The brain will use the words/grammar that the environment has taught them will be understood.

 

So if you want them to be bilingual, really the best way is to keep bringing them back to China regularly and let them stay there for 3-4 months.  When they are sometime between 7-9, their 1st language acquisition period will close, and if at that time (say, age 9), they have been able to spend at least 4-5 months in each country within the last year, they will have both Chinese and English locked in as their native language.

 

If they use Chinese as their native language only part of the time as they are growing up, they will pretty much forget it after spending 6 months in the US.

However, even after "losing" the ability to speak the other language, they will still always have an ability to learn that language more quickly.

 

For example, my father was raised in a completely German environment, until he started school.  Once he started school, he wouldn't speak German any more.  When his little sisters were born and started to speak, they only spoke English.  But for many years, my grandparents spoke to them in German and they answered back in English.  Even now, 70 years or so later, my Dad can understand about 60% of what he hears in German, and I have no doubt that even at his advanced age, if we were to go to Germany together, he would probably be speaking German fluently much faster than me, and maybe within a month.

 

My son was raised with Chinese in our home (his mother spoke Chinese, I spoke bad Chinese).  He started to speak when he was in China, and was there for 4-5 months or so.  Came back and spoke only Chinese until he started daycare, then he slowly lost all his Chinese.  Then when he was 3, he went there again for 6 months.  When he came back, he couldn't speak any English, only spoke Chinese, but over the next 3-4 months slowly became all English again.  When he was 4, he went back to China again, this time for 4 months.  I got to spend 2 weeks in China with him when we went to bring him back, and I spoke to him in English and he didn't understand anything I said.  We brought him back and within 3 months I spoke to him in Chinese and again, he didn't understand anything, even though it was very simple.

 

He hasn't been back to China since.  When he was 8, my wife's grandparents came to visit and lived with us for 4 months.  Since neither him nor his little sister needed to speak with them that much, they really didn't learn any Chinese.  Even hearing it in the house every day didn't really teach them anything.

 

But now that they are 14 and 12, my wife is teaching them Chinese during the summers. He picks it up much quicker than his little sister, and I gotta believe it is because for more than a full year of his life before age 5, he had a completely Chinese environment.  But even that wasn't enough to overcome that his friends all speak English.

 

I also spent about 3 years in a Chinese church in Honolulu.  I saw bunches of families where the kids were born in the US or moved here when they were children.  For those who moved her at age 7-10 or younger, they were native English speakers, but clearly not native Chinese speakers.  Even in their teens, they could basically just speak single words, almost just baby talk in Chinese.  I had studied Chinese for only 5 years or so at that time, but my Chinese was far better than theirs.  But if they moved to the States after about age 9-10 or so, they never lost their Chinese accent and they always had some grammar problems in English.  They were native Chinese speakers but never truly native English.  But a small handful, all who came to the US between age 7 to 10 (or so), were truly bilingual.  They could fully participate in the Chinese-speaking church (using vocabulary far beyond a 10-year-old), spoke flawless Chinese, and flawless English.

 

Now, the ones that had "lost" their Chinese would go to college, find out how cool it was that they could speak a few words of Chinese, take Chinese as a minor or something in college, and come back nearly fluent.

So they don't really completely lose it...but they have to work to get it back.

 

All of which is to say, I don't think Chinese school is that helpful.  Better to bring/send them back to China for 4-6 months at a time.  If you can do it every year, great!  If not, at least every other year....

[Lu]

Haven't tried searching in Chinese yet. Sounds funny but I was hoping to find it English so there will be westerners in the group too.

I think maybe in that case you're looking for 2-3 different groups. The concerns and interests of Chinese mothers overseas will be somewhat different from those of Western parents who want to teach their kids Chinese. My guess is there are plenty of both, and they are likely to have their online and probably real-life meeting points, but the first group will be most comfortable writing Chinese and the second, English (or another foreign language).

[Meng Lelan]

Well, we can be your online community, can't we 

[gato]

You could try mitbbs.com and wenxuecity.com