Afraid to be Chinese - by Xin Mei

 

-Spoiler warning-

As a Filipino born and raised in the Philippines with Chinese background, I delved into this book expecting it to be more about the stigma the minority Chinese have to put up with in the Philippines or about the dangers they have to face (such as kidnappings, etc) but found it to be different. It's more about the Tsinay and her issues growing up, from not having a birthday, inheriting slave girls to arranged marriages. However I was just told that a lot of these are not anymore true. I spoke with a few chinese ladies (2nd generation) who were born here but whose parents migrated from China and they said that slave girls are not true (at least not since the 2nd world war.) Then even if your birthday falls on a different date on the gregorian calendar every year, it is always celebrated, unlike what is said in the book (bec the date on the lunar calendar is permanent.) And you are not forced to marry or give away your child to a childless sibling if you do not consent. However, the rest of the stories, like growing up in a private all-girls school, exchanging letters with boys, those I think were typical. Still, I think it was nice for someone to write about being a Tsinay and to have given her a voice.

Afraid to be Chinese is available in ebook format at Flipreads.com and at Amazon.com