As Americans living in Asia, we have known to blend cultures
in many ways. In these ways, both cultures (our home and host cultures) can
both look at us strangely and wonder what in the world we are doing. Things that give others around us a good chuckle because it looks so insanely out of place.
For example, in Japan there is a wonderful time of year
called Golden week. During this week it is the peak of cherry blossom season. Gorgeous trees with pink or white flowers are all over the streets and parks of Japan. The Japanese will pack beautiful picnics and bring them to the park.
Their picnics often look something like this:
Image from here
We decided to join in on the picnicking fun during this time
but we did not have the beautiful bento boxes (Japanese "to-go" boxes) our fellow neighbors had worked hard at creating. No, our
picnic looked more like this:
It was a spectacle to say the least. Many locals looked over and had a (very friendly) chuckle at our “picnic” and thought it was quite a hysterical site. A few college students stopped by and asked us several questions, practicing their english with us for a few moments. Yes, there we were, in the middle of Japan, celebrating the local festivities with our American twist to the local tradition.
Another example is where our blog name was created from. In
China, during October holiday there are several different festivities but one of
my kid’s favorite was to eat mooncakes. Mooncakes are a sweet dense cake/cookie
like dessert that looks like this:
These treats come in all kinds of flavors and varieties from
lotus seed to Starbucks coffee flavors. This Chinese dessert seems to be a “love it” or “hate it”
type thing with foreigners. Our family enjoys them for the most part. One year
we were sitting near the lake of our apartment building and looked around and
saw everyone around us eating mooncakes and drinking green tea, the traditional choice of beverage with these treats. I then looked at our
kids and had a good laugh with Justin as we watched our kids devouring mooncakes
and washing them down with a certain sports drink that kind of sounds like
lemonade. Again, a beautiful example of how we now live in this blended culture
created by our unique experiences. I didn’t use the said sports drink, due to copyright
reasons, but I found lemonade to be a good switch that made the same point.
Our lives have been changed forever from our time overseas.
We don’t always fit the cookie cutter mold of Americans and we certainly don’t
fit into the Asian world. But through time, we’ve created a
beautiful world where our kids love sushi but will eat a hot dog any day. Where
they enjoy a great baseball game but are just as happy watching a kung fu
session at the park. They are very use to crowds and chaos. They are just as excited about Chinese New Year as they are about Christmas. We use words in Chinese and English, often blending the
two together to make a sentence. Because sometimes, the Chinese just say it better.
But even with all it's ups and downs, I am forever thankful for this cultural blend that has been created due to our experiences both in the USA and in Asia. Our family has been blessed to know glimpses of Asia. And our life has become so much richer because of it.
And so came our blog, Mooncakes and Lemonade. Because well, we just do things a little different around here.
