Cherishing Our Culture As ABCs & ABTs ft. Crystal Hsia: Why We Cling To Our Culture in the West | Real You Mandarin Podcast EP27

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If you grew up outside the motherland, here's a pattern you might recognize in yourself: you seem to care more about actively connecting with your culture — hunting down the right foods, celebrating the holidays, buying what you're "supposed to" for each festival — than your own family still living in Taiwan or China does. In this episode I sit down with Crystal Hsia, our Real You Mandarin: Self-Expression partner teacher, to figure out why that is. And it turns out to be more layered than it first looks.

Crystal brings a unique perspective to this topic. She grew up in Taiwan, immigrated to the US about a decade ago, and has spent years teaching Mandarin to ABC and ABT kids in Chinese School and through private lessons. So she's watched this phenomenon from both sides of the ocean, and she's even started to notice it in herself.

Why We Chase Our Culture Harder Than Our Family Abroad

The first piece is simply environment. For our relatives back in the motherland, culture isn't something you go looking for. It's the air they breathe. Step outside during Mid-Autumn Festival in Taiwan and you already know what time of year it is; it's everywhere around you. Ask your older cousins there what they do to celebrate a holiday and the answer is often a shrug: nothing special, we just get the day off.

In the West, none of that ambient culture exists. Our surroundings don't remind us who we are, so we have to reach for it on purpose — the food, the fashion, the customs — just to feel connected to that side of ourselves. What looks like "trying really hard" from the outside is really us building the connection by hand that our family never had to think about.

When Mandarin Insecurity Makes Us Hold On Tighter

There's a second, quieter reason too. A lot of us who grew up in the West carry insecurity about our Mandarin. Language is one of the most central pieces of any culture, and also one of the hardest to fully master and claim as our own. So when the part we most want to own feels shaky, we grip harder onto the parts of our culture we can control. Crystal points out that this whole tendency 涉及 / 涉及 / shè jí / touches on something bigger than any single holiday — it's about where we're allowed to feel confident in our own identity.

The Layer of Culture That's Easiest to Hold Onto

Crystal breaks culture into three layers: cultural products, cultural practices, and cultural values. That first layer, 文化產物 / 文化产物 / wén huà chǎn wù / cultural products, is the stuff a culture creates that you can actually see and touch — the mooncakes at Mid-Autumn, the zongzi at Dragon Boat Festival, the colors you're allowed to wear at New Year. It's the easiest layer to grab onto, which is exactly why so many of us in the West reach for it first.

What's striking is that Crystal has caught herself doing the same thing. Since moving to the US, she's found herself drawn to Taiwanese cultural trinkets she wouldn't have glanced at back home — things that were 稀鬆平常 / 稀松平常 / xī sōng píng cháng / completely ordinary and commonplace in Taiwan, now worth real money to her as a way to stay connected. In the episode she and I get into the mooncake-versus-zongzi mix-ups she saw as a teacher, why she's read the Chang'e legend more times in the US than in her entire childhood, and how reframing all of this turned it from something to feel guilty about into something to feel good about.

Key Vocab From This Episode

涉及 / 涉及 | shè jí (to touch on / to involve / to concern)

文化產物 / 文化产物 | wén huà chǎn wù (cultural products — things a culture creates)

稀鬆平常 / 稀松平常 | xī sōng píng cháng (ordinary / everyday / commonplace)

These are all words from the actual conversation, not textbook vocabulary — the kind that come up when you're talking about real life and identity in Mandarin.

Want to Talk About Your Own Identity in Mandarin?

Real You Mandarin: Self-Expression is built for American-born Chinese (ABCs), American-born Taiwanese (ABTs), and advanced Mandarin learners who want to express their real selves in Mandarin — including the full spectrum of emotions as well as the self-reflection you've probably already done as part of your own self-growth journey. And fittingly for this episode: did you know the Fertility & Parenting module has several lessons teaching you how to explain the importance of each key holiday and the customs around them? That's the exact cultural-connection work Crystal and I get into here.

Not sure if it's for you yet? Try a free lesson from the course first to see if the format is right for you, and learn more at realyoumandarin.com.

Get the Full Transcript

Want the full transcript of this episode in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Pinyin, and English with key vocab highlighted? Download the EP1 transcript for free here. If you find it useful, check out our Podcast Transcript Membership to unlock all episode transcripts.

If you're interested in working with Crystal as a private student, you can learn more on her website at crystalmandarin.com.

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