Family Patterns In Childhood

Family Patterns in Childhood
My maternal grandmother, Kwun, was born in Fujian, China in 1919. Her rural community consisted mainly of farmers, and their society most resembled the clan family pattern where the hoe was the primary mode of production. In comparison to other residents of her town, she was raised in a relatively wealthy household; her parents were shopkeepers for a local tea business and field work was not required of her. However, she was still a productive member of society and contributed by taking care of the younger children in her family. Kwun’s household size varied while she grew up. She was the second oldest child out of four or five children, the exact number of her siblings is unknown since infant mortality was
My grandmother encountered various forms of child fostering in her life. Kwun grew up with a distant cousin her parents took in after his parents died, leaving him orphaned at age eight. She adopted her oldest child, a victim of attempted infanticide, who was abandoned on the streets. In Asian societies, infanticide is a common practice for families who desire sons in order to pass down their family wealth. Kwun also simultaneously raised her sister’s daughter along with five of her own children when her sister and her sister’s husband relocated to Hong Kong. There was no difference between how biological and adopted children are treated, just like in clan families. To this day, Lin refers to her adopted sister’s children as her niece and nephew and my sister Elis and I address them as our cousins. We are just as close to them as we are with our cousins whom we are biologically related
This was true for both my grandparents and parents. My grandparents, Kwun and Cheng grew up together in the same town and knew each other since their teenage years. Their relationship most resembles the nuclear era trend of dating that leads to marriage, marrying your high school sweetheart, and propinquity. My mother’s dating history is a great example of someone who dated less homogenously and recreationally where dating doesn’t always lead to marriage. Lin claims that she has been on at least one date with ten different men before she met my dad. Most of her dates were arranged by a mutual friend and embodied the patriarchal trend of courtship being a community affair. My father’s mother was actually the one to introduce her son to Lin and on their first date, it was definitely a highly controlled community affair. My mother and uncle dined at a restaurant with my dad, my grandmother, and aunt. At the end of their lunch, Jiaming asked my uncle for Lin’s phone number and that is the beginning of how my parents began their relationship. It was a publically arranged and chaperoned first date where both parties had the approval of their families. After this first encounter, there were less instances of familial control. My father courted my mother in a semi-ritualistic format, another patriarchal trend, by calling her every night after work for a dinner