5 unique things I do that only migrants can understand

Our backgrounds influence what we do. My husband and I are migrants from Malaysia. We settled in Australia after we finished our tertiary education. There were things that we introduced to our children that clearly tell we are definitely not born and bred in Australia.

Here are five examples:

I packed rice in their lunch box

I am not sure whether my children’s school mates thought that they may be weird for having rice with odd ingredients (and some with strange aroma as well) for lunch.  However later on, their school mates sort of enjoyed what my children shared with them. They even swapped morning tea and lunches 🙂

I overwrapped my children

Looking through photo albums, my children could not believe how I used to “wrap” them in thick clothings You see, I came from a warm climate country, and anything below 20 degrees at that time was considered “cold”, so out came the parkas and jumpers. I am sure they would have blamed me if they had “heat stroke” at that time!

Introducing many traditional rituals to them

We introduced my children to many cultural celebrations and the rituals that go with them, such as Chinese New Year, “zongzi” festival, “moon cake festival”, “dragon boat” festival, “tong yuen” festival, why red colour represents happy occasions and black for sad occasions… We invited them to join us in preparing for these special celebrations.

Weird expressions

We constantly used weird expressions like “aiyah” or “oh” or “lah”, which are very typical of Malaysians. For example, “alamak”, “no-lah”, “yes-lah”… these expressions are useful when things did not turn out the way one expects. I would use “aiyah”…it is quite similar to the expressions of “s–t” 🙂

Not serving food  to guests or friends is a big NO NO!

We must always have food when friends drop in. Not having food to serve them is a big NO NO! My daughter still reminds me on how upset I was when she did not “serve” her friends food when they attended her birthday party… even though that incident happened many years ago 🙁

This is the same when visiting friends; going there empty handed is also a big No NO!

What is your unique culture?

What are things that you have done that are unique from your family ritual, culature and traditions?

Have a fun day with your family.