by Heather Diamond | Jun 1, 2021 | Blog, Daily Life, Intercultural, Travel
Adapting doesn’t mean you get to erase history. It means you get an opportunity to see things from another side. Whether White people choose to get mad or be humbled by the experience of being racially marked, it’s hard to relinquish the invisible kind of invisibility until we realize it blinds us to both our own and other people’s realities.
by Heather Diamond | Mar 31, 2021 | Belief, Blog, Family, Intercultural, Relationships, Tradition
Ching Ming (also spelled Qing Ming), one of two annual “grave-sweeping” observances in the Chinese calendar, coincides with Easter this year, which seems vaguely appropriate to me. They are both commemorations of death, transition, and afterlife. Of course, Easter focuses on a single individual while Ching Ming is when Chinese families honor their ancestors. I might be stretching things, but the emphasis in both cases seems to be on continuity after death.
by Heather Diamond | Mar 24, 2021 | Blog, Daily Life, Family, Intercultural, Relationships, Tradition
Being in a Chinese family periodically throws me up against my cultural edges and forces me to question behaviors or beliefs I take for granted. For me, the concept of reciprocity is like an electric fence between my American training and Chinese customs. It zaps me with words like favor, debt, and obligation—all of which make me squirm.
by Heather Diamond | Feb 18, 2021 | Blog, Family, Intercultural, Relationships, Tradition, Writing
I stepped out of my comfort zone twenty years ago when I first came to Hong Kong, but I didn’t realize then that beyond every doorway we step through, there is another threshold we must dare ourselves to pass.
by Heather Diamond | Dec 1, 2020 | Blog, Daily Life, Family, Intercultural, Relationships
My intercultural marriage is never dull, but parts of it are mired in translation.
by Heather Diamond | Oct 13, 2020 | Blog, Daily Life, Intercultural, Politics, Travel
I don’t know about you, but for me, this not going anywhere is getting strange. As if life in 2020 could get any stranger. I returned to Hong Kong at the tail end of July, and it’s now mid-October. While I was away, COVID-19 cases dwindled, and the protests died down...